LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Oats 


I 


I 


Nature  and  Its 
Natural  Laws 


J\  Practical  treatise  on  Poultry  Culture 
for  tDarket  and  Profit 


Poultry  Raising-  on  a  Large  Scale. 
Cause  and  Prevention  of  Poultry 
Diseases.... No  Drugs  or  Medicines 
Will  Cure  or  Prevent  Diseases  of 
Poultry... Nature  is  followed  in  Rais- 
ing Fowls.... Fifteen  Years  Experi- 
menting, and  Twenty-five  Years  of 
Practical  Experience. 


COPYRIGHT,    1901,   BY  JNO.  M.  8ONTA& 


'm 


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INTRODUCTION 

|HIS  BOOK  will  help  the  experts.  It  is  also  intended 
for  those  who  are  about  to  go  into  the  Poultry  busi- 
ness as  a  business  on  a  large  or  small  scale,  and  for 
hatching  and  raising1  by  incubators  and  brooders  for  market 
purposes. 

All  Poultry  breeders  have  followed  a  few  experts  on 
Poultry  and  999  out  of  every  1,000  failed  who  followed  those 
so-called  experts.  Why?  Because  they  really  did  not  know 
how  to  instruct  the  breeders.  They  themselves  could  not 
prevent  diseases,  could  not  hatch  or  raise  enough  to  make  it 
pay.  Not  one  of  the  experts,  professors,  doctors  or  writers 
of  Poultry,  etc. ,  made  it  a  special  study  for  fifteen  years. 

I  honestly  believe  that  all  experts  tried  their  best,  and 
did  not  intend  to  mislead  anyone  who  went  into  the  busi- 
ness. Not  one  in  fifty  who  have  written  books  on  Poultry 
and  who  have  written  articles  in  Poultry  papers  were  prac- 
tical and  experienced  on  a  large  scale.  They  have  tried  it 
in  a  small  way  in  their  back  yards,  raising  fifty  to  100  chicks 
€very  year,  and  what  they  did  raise,  I  dare  say  were  not  free 
from  disease,  nor  did  they  rais»e  half  what  they  hatched. 

There  are  really  only  about  fifty  large  breeders  who 
raise  5,000  Ducks  and  Poultry  every  year.  These  make  it 
pay  by  hard  work  and  at  a  great  expense.  If  the  whole 
truth  were  known  not  half  of  these  fifty  can  raise  over  half 
what  they  hatch.  This  is  a  great  loss  to  breeders  and  this 
is  the  cause  of  so  many  failures. 

I  have  bred  the  so-called  Standard  Pure  Blooded  Poul- 
try for  many  years,  and  side  by  side  raised  common  Poultry 
hatched  and  raised  by  hens  and  also  by  incubators  and 
brooders.  I  found  that  the  common  every  day  stock  are 
more  hardy,  stand  more  exposure  than  the  fine  bred  stock. 

But,  the  pure  standard  fowls  can  be  made  just  as  hardy 
as  any  fowls  on  earth  if  you  only  know  how,  and  not  one  in 
10,000  knows  how. 


4  NATURE    AND   ITS 

Cause  of  Diseases. 

Diseases  of  Poultry  are  caused  by  incubator  hatched  and 
brooder  raised.  In  not  knowing-  how,  or  in  other  words,  no 
judgment  is  used,  and  nature  is  not  followed.  Inbreeding, 
crowding1,  yarding  them,  etc.,  etc.,  are  causes  of  diseases. 

Incubators  and  Brooders. 

The  greatest  cause  of  all  diseases  are  caused  by  the 
chicks  being  incubator  hatched  and  brooder  raised.  Why? 
Because  they  have  not  the  right  kind  of  heat  and  ventila- 
tion. The  chicks  are  raised  on  the  hot-house  plan,  and  na- 
ture is  not  followed.  There  are  just  two  incubators  and  one 
brooder  manufactured  to-day  that  are  as  near  to  nature  as 
can  be  had,  viz:  The  Axford  and  the  Iowa,  and  the  Natural 
Hen  Brooder,  and  if  directions  are  followed  you  cannot  fail 
to  raise  healthy  chicks  because  they  are  hatched  as  healthy 
as  a  hen  hatches  them,  large  and  plump  and  a  ball  of  down. 
Also  the  Natural  Hen  Brooder  has  proper  natural  heat  and 
ventilation  and  so  arranged  that  th«  chicks  have  a  free 
range  of  heat  and  ventilation  and  there  are  no  corners  to 
crowd  into.  Round  brooder. 

I  have  made  it  a  special  study  to  discover  the  cause  of 
all  trouble  and  failures,  etc.  The  experiment  cost  me  $6,000. 
I  have  raised  Poultry  in  almost  every  climate  in  the  United 
States  from  New  Jersey  to  California,  from  British  north- 
west to  the  Gulf  and  I  find  that  Poultry  can  be  raised  and 
are  raised  in  any  soil  and  climate  without  disease  if  you 
know  how.  Nature  is  the  best  teacher.  I  have  built  over 
100  different  styles  of  houses.  I  built  three  houses  inside  of 
each  other  to  prevent  roup,  etc.,  and  still  would  have 
roup,  colds,  etc.  Draughts,  dampness,  cracks  in  walls,  with 
wind  blowing  in  will  not  cause  roup  and  colds,  if  only  judg- 
ment and  common  sense  is  used.  A  fowl  roosts  on  trees  in 
all  kinds  of  weather,  and  is  the  healthiest  chicken  on  the 
farm.  On  the  other  hand,  those  kept  warm  and  comfort- 
able are  subject  to  all  diseases  if  fed  on  high  rich  food,  etc. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  5 

Feeding-  is  the  most  important  point.  I  have  fed  all 
kinds  of  Poultry  and  have  tried  several  hundred  different 
ways  of  feeding1.  I  have  camped  out  in  the  west  and  the 
wild  west.  I  have  watched  nature,  such  as  wild  and  domes- 
tic fowls  and  animals.  Seven  years  of  out  door  life  under 
canvas  tents,  day  and  nigiit,  summer  and  winter,  and  half 
of  the  night  was  spent  experimenting.  Watching-  birds  and 
animals  during-  the  day  time,  close  watch  kept,  how  they 
feed  and  what  they  eat.  My  experience  tells  me  that  a  hen 
will  do  100  per  cent  better  if  she  is  left  alone  to  pick  her  own 
feed  and  select  her  own  roost  and  have  a  free  rang-e  on  the 
farm  where  grain  and  cattle  are  raised.  Often  she  comes 
home  with  twelve  to  eig-hteen  chicks  six  to  eig-ht  weeks  old. 
Who  fed  those  chickens,  who  watered  them,  who  drove 
them  to  shelter  in  the  rainstorms,  etc?  One  season  I  had 
over  two  dozen  such  hens  and  turkeys  come  home  who  stole 
their  nests,  and  hatched  every  eg-g  and  raised  every  chick 
and  poult.  Why  did  not  these  get  diseases?  Why  did  they 
not  get  chilled,  etc.,  and  die?  Nature  is  the  best  doctor. 
Follow  her  closely. 

Why  do  oui  Poultry  have  hundreds  of  diseases  now, 
and  twenty  to  forty  years  ago,  our  fathers  tell  us,  they 
never  had  diseases.  Of  course  they  did  not  raise  10,000 
chickens,  as  we  do  now,  but  they  raised  from  200  to  2,000 
•every  year.  I  was  born  and  raised  on  a  New  Jersey  Poultry 
and  fruit  farm  thirty-three  years  ago.  When  I  was  five 
years  old  I  owned  my  first  bantams.  When  twelve  years 
old  I  had  over  200  fowls  of  all  kinds.  I  never  had  diseases 
among  my  poultry  until  I  read  up  on  Poultry.  When  I  was 
^fifteen  or  sixteen  years  old  I  commenced  to  read  up  on  the 
subject.  I  got  all  the  books  and  papers  I  could,  made  my 
own  brooders  and  incubators  and  in  one  year  I  was  swamp- 
ed with  trouble  of  all  kinds,  roup,  cholera  and  other  dis- 
eases. They  would  die  like  sheep,  wagon  loads  of  them 
«very  year.  I  lost  money  so  fast  that  it  got  me  to  thinking; 
why  is  it  that  I  have  diseases  how  and  did  not  have  when  I 
did  not  know  a  Leghorn  from  a  Dominick.  I  always  hatch- 
ed chicks  and  turkeys  by  hens  and  raised  them  by  heias  and 


6  NATURE   AND   ITS 

never  had  any  trouble.  Now  I  raised  them  by  a  new  way, 
incubators  and  brooders,  and  they  die  faster  than  I  can 
raise  them,  and  what  I  did  raise  got  sick  and  had  roup,  etc., 
if  the  weather  changes  or  the  wind  blew  in  a  different  di- 
rection. During  this  time  I  noticed  that  farmers  had  poor 
houses  and  old  sheds.  The  wind  and  snow  blew  into  the 
houses,  but  they  had  no  colds  or  roup  among  their  poultry. 
These  farmers  did  not  know  anything  about  poultry,  never 
read  a  Poultry  book  or  a  Poultry  paper,  and  did  not  know 
that  there  was  anything  written  on  the  subject.  Some  of 
them  afterward  bought  books  and  papers  on  Poultry  and 
from  that  very  time  they  had  trouble  of  all  kinds. 

The  publishers  and  editors  of  the  Poultry  papers  are  not 
in  the  fault.  But  those  who  write  for  these  papers  and  some 
breeders  of  poultry  sixty  years  ago  have  written  books  on 
poultry.  These  very  men  found  that  poultry  paid  if  they 
were  cared  for  properly.  They  kept  records  of  eggs  laid, 
commenced  to  get  fine  stock,  and  every  year  they  imported 
a  new  breed.  They  improved  their  poultry,  bred  them  to  a 
certain  color,  and  now  they  are  so  finely  bred  and  inbred  so 
many  times  that  their  constitution  has  been  ruined,  their 
blood  thinned,  and  they  are  weakly,  consumptive  and  good- 
for-nothing  fowls.  This  is  positive  proof,  as  every  one  knows, 
that  inbreeding  is  the  most  terrible  undertaking  that  any 
person  can  conceive.  I  don't  inbreed  my  poultry,  but  you 
must  remember  that  they  have  been  inbred  from  ten  to 
twenty  times  before  you  ever  got  your  Poultry.  This  in- 
breeding is  to  get  a  certain  strain,  and  when  the  color  is 
obtained  which  they  wish,  then  they  breed  for  shape,  for 
size,  for  a  certain  color  of  eye.  Every  feather  must  be  just 
so,  and  if  the  feather  must  be  penciled,  then  they  try  for  ten 
years  to  get  a  feather  such  as  the  Standard  calls  for.  Don't 
you  call  this  inbreeding?  I  do.  This  is  just  what  has 
ruined  our  Poultry.  Then  they  hatch  eggs  by  incubators 
and  raise  the  chicks  by  brooders,  and  this  is  another  way  to 
ruin  the  health  of  the  fowls.  The  hens  that  laid  the  eggs 
were  not  really  sick,  if  they  had  been  they  could  not  lay 
eggs.  They  were  weakened  by  inbreeding,  and  it  is  difficult 


NATURAL  LAWS.  7 

to  raise  young  chicks  of  this  inbred  stock  by  incubators  and 
brooders  that  are  only  fit  for  kindling1  wood  and  made  to  sell, 
not  to  hatch  and  raise  chicks.  This  you  all  know  to  be  a  fact. 
An  incubator  chick  is  a  hot-house  plant  and  can  not  stand 
outside  air  or  exposure.  In  the  first  place,  they  are  not 
hatched  properly,  not  the  right  kind  of  heat  and  ventilation 
and  the  moisture  the  hen  gives.  To  prove  this,  I  will  only 
call  your  attention  to  this  fact.  Why  do  incubators  hatch 
cripples?  Did  you  ever  see  a  hen  hatch  crippled  chicks? 
Also,  if  an  egg  is  fertile,  the  hen  hatches  the  egg  almost 
every  time,  especially  if  the  hen  steals  her  nest.  But  just 
as  soon  as  you  test  her  ejfgs  wait  for  her  to  go  on  the  nest 
and  close  her  nest  up  tight  and  the  chances  are  the  hen 
won't  hatch  every  egg.  You  cannot  fool  with  nature. 

An  incubator  that  hatches  the  chicks  healthy  and  a 
brooder  that  raises  the  chicks  also  healthy,  if  the  owner  uses 
judgment,  can  raise  the  chicks  just  as  well  as  the  hen  can. 
I  have  done  this  four  years.  I  use  a  good  incubator  and  a 
Natural  Hen  brooder  of  my  own  make.  I  never  have  any 
trouble  now  in  any  way.  I  would  have  given  $1,0«'0  cash 
fifteen  years  ago  to  have  known  what  I  know  to-day.  I 
don't  know  it  all  now  by  a  long  ways.  I  learn  every  day, 
by  experience  only.  You  may  learn  or  read  all  your  life 
time  how  to  make  gold  into  money  or  read  how  to  care  for 
Poultry.  You  learn  nothing  by  reading  unless  you  have  a 
good  book  to  go  by  and  some  experience  at  least,  and  the 
book  must  be  from  a  practical  experienced  poultryman. 

Do  Incubator  Chicks  Lay  Eggs  and  Lots  of  Them? 

Yes  and  no.  I  have  experimented  for  many  years  on 
this  one  particular  point.  The  average  number  of  eggs  laid 
by  incubator  chickens  are  sixty  to  eighty  per  year.  Try  it 
and  see  for  yourself.  The  average  number  laid  by  a  hen 
hatched  chicken  is  120  to  200  per  year,  according  to  the 
breed.  Leghorns  are  not  the  best  layers.  This  depends  on 
the  breed  of  chickens.  I  have  gotten  239  eggs  per  year  from 
White  Plymouth  Rocks,  Rhode  Island  Reds  and  Black  Lang- 


8  NATURE   AND   ITS 

shans.  These  are  the  greatest  winter  layers,  that  is  if  they 
are  bred  to  it,  not  fancy  feathers  considered,  but  for  busi- 
ness. The  Langshans  are  all  the  year  around  layers  and  are 
good  mothers,  in  fact  the  best;  and  the  Langshans  are  fine 
eating1,  thin  in  bone  and  skin,  with  fine  grained,  juicy  meat. 
The  French  like  the  black  fowls  best  and  the  French  are 
considered  the  leaders  of  the  world  in  cooking1.  America 
likes  a  yellow  skin  and  leg's  on  Poultry  for  market.  This 
you  can  get  on  Buff  Wyandottes  and  Rhode  Island  Reds. 
They  never  have  black  pin  feathers  at  any  age  and  are  al- 
ways ready  and  the  right  size  for  the  market.  A  private 
family  wants  a  fowl  that  weighs  about  five  pounds  dressed, 
plump  and  round,  not  all  legs  and  bone.  When  it  comes  to 
an  all  around  business  hen,  nothing  beats  a  Rhode  Island 
Red  or  a  Buff  Wyandotte.  Black  Langshans  come  next, 
and  for  layers  are  the  best. 

For  Market  Poultry. 

Don't  keep  more  than  one  breed  of  fowls.  You  don't 
need  to  fence  yourself  poor  with  poultry  wire,  yards,  etc.  It 
will  pay  100  per  cent  better  to  keep  only  one  breed,  and  they 
are  not  one-fifth  the  trouble  and  cost  in  starting.  For 
market  and  eggs  you  will  not  have  any  diseases  if  you  keep 
your  poultry  for  market  only,  but  if  you  go  in  for  fancy 
show  stock  you  must  in-breed  to  get  the  fancy  points,  and  to 
win  in  shows.  For  market  I  would  use  the  following  fowls: 
Rhode  Island  Reds,  hens  and  pullets.  They  lay  the  most 
eggs  with  the  least  care  and  feed.  They  were  raised  for  100 
years  for  market  and  eggs,  and  like  range  cattle  rustlers, 
they  help  themselves.  But  you  must  give  them  range,  and 
you  need  not  have  separate  pens  and  yards  for  market  Poul- 
try and  eggs. 

How  to  Start. 

Buy  eggs  or  pullets  from  a  breeder  who  raises  Poultry 
for  market  and  eggs.  It  depends  on  your  money  how  many 
to  get,  100  to  1,000  hens  and  pullets.  The  hens  should  not 


NATURAL   LAWS. 

be  over  one  and  one-half  years  old  for  layers.  Pullets  are 
the  best  layers.  If  you  have  a  farm,  build  small  houses 
twelve  foot  long1,  twelve  foot  wide,  eight  foot  high  in  front 
and  six  foot  in  the  rear,  with  open  shed  to  the  south.  These 
are  for  spring,  summer  and  fall  use.  Put  fifty  hens  and  two 
cockerels  in  each  house.  These  houses  must  be  100  yards 
apart  and  on  a  colony  plan.  No  yards  are  necessary.  Train 
your  hens  a  few  days  to  let  them  know  where  to  roost  and 
they  all  will  go  to  their  own  house  and  not  all  go  in  one. 
An  open  south  front  house  is  the  purest  and  healthiest  house 
to  keep  Peultry  in.  See  Blue  Print  on  how  to  biiild  it.  Fresh 
air  every  day  in  the  year  is  the  best  doctor  for  all  fowls. 

Don't  Make  a  Hot-House  Plant  of  Your  Poultry. 

Don't  fuss  with  your  fowls.  Give  them  free  range.  You 
positively  cannot  make  it  pay  yarding  them. 

Now  about  cockerels  and  cocks.  If  you  have  Rhode  Is- 
land Reds  hens,  pure,  the  first  year  use  Rhode  Island  Reds 
cocks  and  cockerels.  Next  year  use  Buff  Wyandotte  cocks 
and  cockerel.  Next  year  Buff  Rock  cockerels.  All  these 
have  a  sprinkle  of  Rhode  Island  Red  blood  in  them.  Then 
the  next  year  use  Buff  Leghorn  cockerels  to  twenty-five 
pullets  or  hens.  Then  the  next  year  use  Rose  Comb  Rhode 
Island  Reds.  Always  buy  your  new  blood  cocks  from  a  dif- 
ferent breeder  and  you  then  don't  in-breed  one  chance  in  a 
hundred.  You  will  have  better  and  healthier  Poultry; 
all  will  be  of  one  color  and  size  and  they  will  be  the 
best  layers  to  be  had.  But  for  fancy  and  show  you  must 
keep  them  yarded  to  keep  them  pure.  But  don't  in-breed, 
also  give  them  a  very  large  yard.  A  dozen  in  a  pen  and  a 
yard,  25  by  150  at  least. 

Cattle,  hogs,  horses,  poultry  and  birds  in  a  wild  state 
are  not  cared  for  in  any  way,  they  help  themselves  and  are 
hardier  than  any  of  the  domesticated  animals.  When  I  was 
out  in  the  far  west  in  different  states  and  climates,  I  saw 
wild  animals,  cattle,  horses  and  sheep  have  their  young 
in  the  snow,  cold  and  windy,  no  shelter,  etc.  I  have  never 


10  NATURE   AND   ITS 

seen  a  horse  sick,  nor  a  cow,  when  raised  in  a  wild  state. 
This  is  bred  into  them  for  years.  Ranchmen  used  to  buy 
and  import  pure  blood  Jerseys,  Holstein  and  Short  Horn 
Bulls  to  improve  their  stock,  but  not  a  quarter  of  them 
would  live  through  the  hard  winters,  with  no  shelter,  no 
hay,  etc.,  and  not  being  used  to  it.  Finally  they  bought 
cows  of  pure  blood  and  had  them  bred  to  pure  blooded 
stock.  The  young  stock  was  born  there  and  from  the  first 
day  had  to  put  up  with  roughing  it  and  they  got  used  to  the 
climate,  and  conditions.  They  did  well  and  picked  their 
living  the  same  as  the  rest  of  the  native  stock.  Now,  if 
those  fine  pure  blooded  in-bred  cattle  were  housed  in  a 
warm  house  and  all  kinds  of  feed  and  fancy  food  and  side 
dishes  given  them  they  would  surely  get  sick  and  not  do 
well.  In  fact,  most  of  these  finely  bred  and  kept  stock  are 
delicate  and  thin  blooded.  The  best  and  only  way  to  get 
strong  healthy  stock  is  to  cross  them. 

So  with  Poultry,  you  must  cross  them  and  not  with  any 
old  thing,  but  keep  one  color,  either  all  Buff  or  all  White. 
Use  different  breeds.  Never  use  a  black  cock  to  white  hens 
or  a  white  cock  to  buff  hens.  Always  keep  the  same  color, 
either  buff  or  white,  so  when  you  sell  for  market  they  are 
all  one  color  and  you  then  get  from  three  to  five  cents  more 
per  pound,  and  then  you  can  also  sell  eggs  to  broiler  men 
and  to  farmers,  for  this  is  just  the  kind  of  stock  they  want- 
They  don't  want  fancy  lacing  and  show  points.  They  want 
practical  business  Poultry.  The  year  1900  government  sta- 
tistics show  almost  $500,000,000  made  in  Poultry  and  eggs 
and  over  three-fourths  of  this  amount  is  made  by  farmers. 
Eggs  are  figured  at  six  and  eight  cents  per  dozen  and  poul- 
try ten  cents  per  pound.  This  is  the  average  price  farmers 
get  for  their  Poultry  and  eggs.  The  Poultrymen  who  make 
a  business  of  Poultry  get  on  an  average  of  twenty-five  cents 
per  dozen  for  eggs  and  fifteen  cents  per  pound  for  spring 
chickens  to  private  trade,  and  if  they  could  raise  all  they 
hatch  there  would  be  100  per  cent  in  the  business  for  the 
money  invested. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  11 

How  Wild  Turkeys  and  Prairie  Chickens  Raise  Their  Young  and 
How  our  Domestic  Turkeys  and  Hens  Raise  Their  Chicks 
if  They  Have  Their  Own  Way. 

I  have  watched  wild  turkeys  and  prairie  chickens,  etc., 
for  years,  when  I  helped  to  trail  a  bunch  of  4,000  head  of 
cattle  from  Texas  to  British  Northwest  Territory.  I  have 
seen  hundreds  of  wild  turkeys  in  Indian  Territory  along  the 
Cinnamon  river  about  the  middle  of  May.  We  had  a  bunch- 
ed lot  of  cattle;  we  could  make  but  a  few  miles  a  day,  as 
they  were  cows,  calves,  steers,  etc.,  and  almost  every  day  in 
that  month  we  had  fifty  to  100  calves  born  to  care  for.  In 
the  evening-  we  would  go  gunning  for  turkeys.  We  would 
watch  where  they  would  roost  and  on  a  moonlight  night 
would  get  the  turkeys  between  us  and  the  moon  and  then 
shoot  the  gobler  and  the  hens.  The  hens  with  young  poults 
would  not  roost  on  the  trees,  because  the  young  could  not 
fly.  These  we  could  not  see  but  would  hear  them  flutter 
away  and  hide  under  the  grass,  etc.  We  spent  two  weeks 
in  this  turkey  country  and  I  noticed  dozens  and  dozens  of 
young  turkeys.  It  was  a  very  cold  and  damp  spring,  and  to 
see  fifteen  to  eighteen  young  poults  was  nothing  unusual. 
These  turkeys  had  their  young  out  in  all  kinds  of  weather, 
and  wet  grass  when  we  would  see  them.  They  were  all 
ages,  some  looked  to  be  twelve  weeks  old,  others  only  a  fe*r 
weeks.  Who  drove  those  turkeys  out  of  the  rain  and  who- 
fed  and  cared  for  them? 

Poultry  breeders,  note  this,  and  you  will  all  admit  that 
it  is  a  fact.  Breeders  kill  their  Poultry  and  turkeys  by  over- 
feeding them  and  not  giving  the  right  kind  of  feed.  They 
raise  them  on  the  prison  or  on  the  hot-house  plan.  In  fact 
they  are  prisoners.  You  will  never  raise  a  turkey  nor  a 
goose  unless  you  give  them  lots  of  range  and  let  them  pick 
their  own  feed  and  roost.  I  have  not  tried  this  once,  but 
fifty  times  or  more. 

A  wild  turkey  hides  her  nsst,  lays  fifteen  to  twenty  eggs 
and  when  these  young  are  a  few  days  old  she  takes  them 
out  for  food,  foot  by  foot.  No  one  ever  chases  them,  no  one 


12  NATURE   AND  ITS 

"bothers  or  worries  them  and  they  don't  get  lost.  But  if  you 
should  scare  them,  half  of  them  would  get  lost.  Now,  the 
old  hen  picks  seeds  of  grass,  calls  the  poults  and  finally  the 
young  pick  their  own  feed  little  by  little,  until  at  night  they 
have  a  crop  full.  They  are  not  fed  fancy  food  and  dosed 
with  other  truck,  which  is  sure  death  to  turkeys.  I  have 
not  feed  a  young  turkey  for  eight  years  and  never  raised 
more  turkeys  in  my  life  than  I  have  during  that  time.  Be- 
fore that  time  I  lost  almost  all.  I  watched  them  day  and 
night,  fed  and  housed  them  with  the  greatest  care,  but  they 
would  hang  their  wings,  get  lousey,  and  if  I  handled  them 
to  get  rid  of  the  lice  they  would  die  in  spite  of  me.  They 
want  liberty.  This  last  summer  I  raised  seventy-two  turk- 
eys. I  never  fed  them.  In  fact  they  could  not  get  anything 
to  eat  at  the  house.  They  hatched  out  in  the  woods,  lived 
on  seeds,  grasshoppers,  and  the  like.  They  went  through 
a  dozen  heavy  rains  and  the  damp  dews  and  they  all  lived. 
I  know  that  if  I  had  kept  them  at  home,  yarded  and  fed 
them,  they  would  have  all  died.  In  the  spring  I  set  twenty - 
•eight  turkey  eggs  under  hens.  Almost  every  egg  hatched, 
but  before  they  were  five  weeks  old  over  one-half  died  and  I 
raised  only  seven  out  of  twenty-eight.  I  gave  them  the  best 
of  care  and  used  common  sense  in  feeding,  etc.,  but  it  was 
of  no  use,  they  died. 

I  remember  a  Black  Langshan  hen  bringing  home  six- 
teen chickens  about  eight  weeks  old,  hatched  and  raised  in 
the  woods  and  never  fed.  Almost  every  year  I  have  had 
one  or  two  hens  come  home  with  ten  or  twelve  chicks.  Bet- 
ter and  healthier  chicks  could  not  be  raised  by  any  man 
with  the  best  of  care. 

Geese  are  the  hardiest  Poultry  we  have  in  the  world, 
but  if  you  try  to  raise  them  in  a  brooder  house  you  cannot 
raise  one.  A  goslin  must  have  grass  to  eat  and  be  out  in  the 
free  air  and  range.  It  will  live  on  grass  alone,  and  will  sel- 
dom eat  anything  else  the  first  week.  A  goslin  hatched,  is 
a,  goslin  raised,  and  they  do  not  want  much  mothering  ex- 
cept on  very  cold  nights. 

Geese  and  turkey  farming  is  the  easiest  and  best  money 


NATURAL   LAWS.  15 

making-  branch  of  the  Poultry  business.  They  require  no 
feed  and  very  little  housing.  In  fact  I  never  house  turkeys 
in  winter,  and  never  have  roup  among  them.  For  the  geese 
you  need  only  a  shed  with  straw  and  hay,  they  eat  hay  like 
a  cow  and  old  rotten  stumps.  Once  a  day  I  feed  China  geese 
corn  and  a  little  ground  feed,  grit  and  water.  Turkeys  in 
winter  I  feed  a  little  oats  and  corn.  I  never  have  fat  fowl& 
and  my  stock  always  lays  lots  of  fertile  eggs.  Fat  fowls 
don't  lay  fertile  eggs,  but  hens  must  be  in  good  flesh.  Ducks 
and  turkeys  also,  but  not  too  fat.  Have  you  not  seen  poor 
children  running  barefoot  in  late  fall  and  early  spring  and 
also  poorly  dressed?  These  children  seldom  get  sick  or 
have  a  cold,  they  are  used  to  it  and  brought  up  that  way. 
They  live  on  common  food  and  not  in  a  steam-heated  house, 
kept  up  to  7*5  or  80  degrees.  They  sleep  in  a  cold  bed  room 
and  they  don't  eat  cake,  pie  and  pastry  of  all  kinds,  but 
their  meals  are  potatoes,  old  dry  bread,  not  hot  buscuits  or 
fresh  bread  before  it  is  barely  cool,  meats,  gravies,  etc.  All 
this  is  not  good  for  children,  and  the  worst  thing  is  tea  and 
coffee  for  children.  It  is  not  good  for  grown  people.  I 
have  not  had  a  sick  child  in  my  house  and  never  had  a  doc- 
tor in  the  house.  If  a  child  has  a  little  fever  I  don't  give 
them  anything  to  eat  until  the  fever  is  gone.  You  can  kill 
a  fever  by  starving  the  system  a  few  days  in  human  beings- 
or  poultry.  If  it  is  a  cold,  I  feed  the  cold,  and  give  the  chil- 
dren hot  diinks  of  tea.  American  children  are  raised  on  the 
hot-house  plan  in  a  temperature  of  80  degrees  and  fed  on 
high  stimulating  foods,  pastry,  and  the  like.  The  parents 
won't  let  them  out  to  play  in  the  fresh  air.  These  children 
are  often  sick  and  always  have  their  family  doctor,  year  in 
and  year  out.  On  the  contrary  if  they  were  let  out  doors  ta 
play  every  day  in  the  year,  sleep  in  a  cold  room,  their  bed 
room  aired  every  day  and  they  were  given  plain  food,  they 
would  not  need  a  doctor  and  would  be  happy  and  healthy. 
This  applies  to  poultry  as  well  as  to  human  beings  and  stock 
of  all  kinds.  If  you  are  used  to  a  temperature  of  75  to  80 
degress  in  your  living  rooms  and  bed  rooms,  you  are  more 
liable  to  catch  cold  than  if  you  were  used  to  a  room  of  60 


14  NATURE  AND   ITS 

degrees  or  colder.     When  you  make  a  change,    make  it  by 
degrees,  don't  do  it  all  at  once. 

Now  take  it  in  the  dog  business  or  kennel  as  it  is  called. 
They  read  up  on  how  to  feed  dogs.  Then  they  feed  them  all 
kinds  of  truck  and  finally  the  dogs  get  sick  and  die.  If  they 
would  stop  to  think,  other  dogs  running  around  never  get 
sick  and  very  seldom  die  while  high  blooded  dogs  die  like 
sheep.  They  feed  on  meat,  every  day  in  the  year,  dog 
<iakes,  and  a  dozen  other  things.  They  feed  too  rich  food, 
not  enough  exercise,  and  are  too  finely  bred,  while  a  com- 
mon dog  picks  up  any  old  thing.  In  fact,  there  could  be  raised 
lots  of  fine  blooded  dogs  and  poultry  that  would  be  just  as 
healthy  as  any  other  animal  or  fowl,  if  only  common  sense 
was  used  and  if  they  would  only  stop  to  think  and  wonder 
why  the  dogs  and  poultry  of  their  neighbors,  who  don't  read 
up  on  pure  blooded  stock  are  not  sick.  The  greatest  trouble 
nowadays  is,  they  study  too  much  on  how  to  get  best  re- 
sults, and  at  the  same  time  they  ruin  the  health  of  their 
poultry  by  high  feeding  and  improper  food.  Some  common 
people  nowadays  are  beginning  to  think  a  little,  for  instance 
coffee  and  tea  is  the  worst  poison  a  person  can  take  if  they 
drink  three  or  four  cups  a  day  all  their  life.  Government 
soldiers  are  not  allowed  to  drink  either  coffee  or  tea.  It 
makes  them  nervous  and  causes  headaches  and  indigestion, 
heavy  feeling  after  a  meal,  and  the  consequences  are  they 
are  not  fit  to  handle  a  gun,  nor  march,  nor  exposure  to  all 
kinds  of  rough  life.  During  the  English  and  Boer  war 
when  the  Boers  were  captured,  they  were  put  in  prison  and 
shipped  to  an  island  300  to  1,000  in  one  shipload.  Some  of 
them  died  and  most  all  were  sick.  This  was  because  they 
were  crowded  in  poorly  ventilated  rooms.  Their  food  was 
different  from  what  they  were  accustomed  to,  and  while  be- 
fore they  had  always  been  accustomed  to  outdoor  life,  with 
the  free  fresh  air  to  breath.  This  is  the  reason,  nothing 
else.  You  have  no  doubt  noticed  the  following,  when  you 
had  Poultry  shipped  to  you  in  the  fall  or  winter  they  had 
caught  a  cold,  roup  was  the  result  and  they  died.  The 
cause  of  this  is,  from  my  experience,  the  Poultry  were  used 


NATURAL   LAWS.  15 

to  an  outdoor  life  and  their  houses  were  at  a  temperature  of 
40  degrees  or  even  the  freezing  point.  They  were  boxed  up, 
put  in  an  express  car,  near  a  stove  80  to  90  degrees  of  heat, 
then  dumped  off  at  some  station  where  it  was  below  freez- 
ing, onto  a  platform  for  three  or  four  hours.  The  sudden 
change  causes  it.  This  also  applies  to  taking  Poultry  to  a 
show.  They  are  kept  in  a  room  or  hall  for  a  week  in  a  tem- 
perature of  70  degrees  and  then  shipped  home  in  a  tempera- 
ture of  zero  or  lower.  They  are  also  fed  three  times  a  day 
in  the  show  room.  This  causes  a  distemper.  They  don't 
get  the  outdoor  air  nor  exercise,  and  in  fact  poor  judgment 
is  used.  They  really  ought  to  be  fed  only  once  per  day,  at 
night  only,  and  very  little  at  that,  and  they  should  not  be 
shipped  out  of  a  warm  room  into  cold  zero  weather.  Take 
the  birds  and  prairie  chickens,  they  are  out  in  all  kinds  of 
weather  and  get  used  to  it.  They  don't  have  sudden 
changes,  and  have  to  look  for  their  food,  it  is  not  taken  to 
them.  They  live  and  breed  and  are  the  healthiest  of  all 
fowls.  I  remember  well  when  I  was  married  eight  years 
ago,  my  father  would  not  go  to  my  wedding  because  he  had 
three  Jersey  cows  coming  in  about  that  time.  He  said  "  I 
must  be  on  the  watch  and  give  them  warm  food,  keep  the 
stable  warm,  blanket  them,  etc."  But  with  all  his  good 
care  one  cow  died.  I  was  married  only  about  100  miles  from 
home,  but  he  could  not  spare  the  time  for  the  trip.  I  told 
him  this.  "  In  my  time  I  have  seen  cows  have  calves  in  the 
snow  and  in  mid-winter  at  that,  and  healthier  cows  and 
calves  I  never  saw.  They  would  kick  up  their  heels  and  run 
around  like  deer."  Cows,  horses  and  poultry  of  all  kinds 
can  be  made  just  as  hardy  if  you  start  right  from  young  on, 
not  to  do  it  when  they  are  matured,  but  when  they  first 
come  into  this  world.  I  have  done  it  for  eight  years,  you 
can  do  the  same  if  you  only  read  this  book  to  the  letter  in- 
structions. Farmers  who  don't  know  anything  about  Poul- 
try have  the  healthiest  chickens.  Why?  Because  they  have 
no  time  to  bother  with  their  hens,  they  let  them  roost  in 
trees  or  sheds,  and  very  seldom  have  a  sick  chicken.  Some- 
times they  have  cholera  among  the  hens.  This  is  caused  by 


16  NATURE   AND  ITS 

feeding1  corn  in  hot  weather;  the  hens  are  too  fat,  and  with 
the  hot  weather  cannot  stand  it.  Cholera  is  nothing-  else 
than  over  feeding-  stock  in  hot  weather  on  fattening  food. 
They  g-et  diarrhoea,  yellow  and  then  green,  their  combs  turn 
black,  they  drink  themselves  to  death  to  cool  off.  The  rea- 
son they  drink  so  much  water  is  that  they  want  to  cool  off 
their  insides,  as  they  fairly  burn  up,  their  droppings  almost 
boil,  turns  yellow,  then  green  and  they  die  by  the  hundreds. 

Poultry  in  Summer. 

Poultry  in  summer  should  not  roost  in  the  house.  An 
open  shed  is  the  best  thing  for  them.  In  the  fall  don't  take 
them  from  the  open  sheds  and  put  them  in  a  warm,  closed 
house,  but  leave1  windows  and  doors  open  to  the  south.  When 
it  gets  so  cold  that  the  ground  freezes,  then  only  close  the 
houses  at  night,  and  leave  open  during  the  day.  Don't  have 
any  top  ventilation;  this  is  all  foolishness,  and  is  not  natural. 
Poultrymen  have  made  a  thousand  mistakes.  Don't  use  drop 
boards;  the  very  idea  of  having  drop  boards  six  inches  under 
the  roosts  !  The  fowls  have  to  breathe  the  smell  of  the 
manure  all  night  long.  This  causes  consumption,  weak  lungs 
distemper,  fever  and  other  sicknesses.  Do  wild  birds  have 
drop  boards  ?  A  wild  bird  or  a  turkey  roosts  away  up  high 
and  the  smell  of  the  manure  never  reaches  them. 

Another  mistake  Poultry  writers  have  made  is  feeding 
mash  foods  to  Poultry,  and  all  kinds  of  rich  foods,  stimulat- 
ing- them  to  make  them  grow,  to  make  them  moult  quickly, 
and  to  make  them  lay  lots  of  eggs.  They  are  only  killing 
the  hens  by  doing  this. 

I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  another  fact.  If  you 
only  stop  to  think,  a  fowl  or  bird  has  a  gizzard.  They  grind 
their  own  food  by  eating-  sharp  stones,  crockery,  glass,  etc. 
Now,  if  you  feed  mash  food,  the  gizzard  cannot  grind  it, 
because  it  is  already  ground  when  the  chicken  eats  it.  Now 
then,  the  food  merely  lays  in  the  gizzard  a  few  hours  and 
passes  out.  In  the  meantime  the  gizzard  has  been  idle,  and 
the  gizzard  should  be  kept  busy  grinding  to  keep  the  fowl 


NATURAL   LAWS. 

healthy.  It  is  the  engine  of  the  hen  or  chicken.  If  the  giz- 
zard is  idle  the  rest  of  the  machinery  is  idle.  Feeding  mash 
food  is  the  cause  of  indigestion.  They  eat  all  the  crop  holds 
and  then  lie  around  and  do  nothing  until  the  next  feeding- 
time.  Meat  and  other  highly  rich  foods  are  sure  death  to 
poultry,  if  they  get  too  much.  Poultry  writers  say  that  the 
chicken  gets  worms  and  bugs  when  on  range,  so  that  we 
must  feed  meat  to  hens  that  are  yarded  up.  Poultry  on 
range  get  bugs  and  worms,  but  the  bugs  and  worms  are  90 
per  cent  water  and  only  contain  about  8  per  cent  nutriment 
and  other  ingredients.  On  the  other  hand,  meat  and  pow- 
ders are  80  to  90  per  cent  nutriment  and  are  too  rich  for 
poultry  to  be  fed  every  day.  Once  a  week,  and  a  very  little 
to  each  chicken  does  not  do  much  harm,  or  one  pound  of 
green  bone  per  day  to  one  hundred  hens.  Only  a  few  years 
ago  another  mistake  was  made  in  supplying  moisture  in 
incubators.  They  find  that  they  were  wrong  and  now  have 
no  moisture.  Some  of  these  professors  have  seen  a  hen 
hatch  every  chick  in  a  hay  loft;  the  weather  was  dry;  it  did 
not  rain  for  six  weeks.  Why  did  these  chicks  hatch?  Now; 
they  claim  that  they  have  it  O.  K.  Well,  to  that  I  will  sayr 
one  incubator  has  it  almost  right  and  near  to  nature.  They 
use  no  tank  ;  instead  they  use  a  heavy  woolen  cloth;  this  is 
the  Axford  incubator.  I  am  experimenting  on  an  incubator 
and  have  been  for  ten  years,  but  will  not  put  it  on  the  mar- 
ket until  I  get  a  natural  heat,  and  one  that  will  hatch  every 
egg  that  a  hen  can,  almost  on  the  same  principle  as  my 
brooders. 

They  say  you  must  heat  up  a  house  to  get  eggs;  also 
heat  up  a  brooder  house  to  70  degrees.  This  is  sure  death 
and  sickness  to  fowls.  Just  as  soon  as  you  heat  up  a  house 
to  more  than  50  degrees  the  air  is  not  fresh,  nor  is  it  healthy 
for  the  poultry  or  chicks;  and  if  you  let  them  out  doors  to 
get  fresh  air  and  exercise  they  catch  a  cold.  I  never  heat, 
up  a  poultry  house  nor  have  a  brooder  house  warmer  than 
45  degrees  in  winter,  unless  the  sun  warms  it  up  to  a  higher 
degree.  This  is  natural.  A  chick  is  not  a  hothouse  plant, 
nor  is  it  natural  for  young  chicks  to  hatch  in  winter,  nor 


18  NATURE    AND   ITS 

can  it  ever  be  made  to  pay  to  raise  chicks  in  December  or 
January.  February,  March,  April  or  May  are  the  proper 
months,  and  before  and  after  that  time  the  eggs  are  only 
50  per  cent  fertile,  and  only  half  of  them  hatch,  and  it  does 
not  pay.  If  you  want  to  raise  broilers  for  profit,  you  should 
hatch  during  the  first  part  of  February  and  March  and  run 
twenty  to  forty  300  egg  capacity  incubators,  and  have  proper 
brooders,  that  will  keep  a  steady  heat  day  and  night.  A  hot 
water  pipe  system  never  did  nor  ever  will  raise  over  one-half 
of  the  chicks.  There  are  a  hundred  drawbacks  to  a  hot 
water  pipe  system,  and  theiexpense  is  so  great  that  it  cannot 
be  made  to  pay,  if  work  and  expenses  are  considered,  and 
the  chicks  raised.  Get  a  Natural  Hen  Heat  Brooder  system. 

Hiring  a  Man. 

Always  try  to  get  a  married  man.  When  he  has  his 
family  on  the  poultry  farm  he  will  be  steadier  and  attend  to 
business  day  and  night.  Six  months  in  the  year  a  man  must 
be  on  duty  every  hour  of  the  day,  Sundays  and  every 
other  day.  No  picnics  or  theaters  can  be  indulged  in  during 
hatching  time.  It  does  not  pay  to  hire  half  a  dozen  men  to 
run  a  poultry  farm.  Labor  eats  up  the  profits  unless  you 
have  lots  of  capital  and  go  in  on  a  large  scale.  There  is  more 
profit  in  Poultry  if  you  do  your  own  work,  and  it  will  pay 
you  50  per  cent  on  the  money  invested  if  close  attention  is 
paid.  But  you  can,  on  the  other  hand,  lose  more  money  in 
the  poultry  business  than  in  any  other  business,  if  you  don't 
start  right.  Don't  be  afraid  to  get  the  best  incubators  and 
brooders.  It  pays.  If  you  buy  cheap  traps  you  will  fail. 
Follow  nature  as  closely  as  you  can,  and  with  this  book  you 
must  have  success,  if  you  only  follow  the  directions  given. 
As  you  read  this  book  make  notes  in  your  memorandum  book 
and  read  it  often. 

Inbreeding  and  the  Results. 

"Wild  turkeys  are  in  bunches  of  twenty  to  forty  and  only 
one  gobbler.  If  more,  the  strongest  and  best  fighter  kills 


NATURAL   LAWS.  19 

all  the  others.  Therefore  there  is  no  chance  for  inbreeding 
Sometimes  a  gobbler  will  come  from  another  bunch  and  kill 
the  leader  and  take  all  the  hens  with  him.  Now,  only  the 
most  vigorous,  strong  and  healthy  gobblers  lead  the  flocks 
and  they  are  not  inbred.  If  any  are  weak  the  leader  kills 
them.  Notice  a  turkey  hen  or  gobbler  if  he  sees  a  sick 
chicken  about  the  place  he  will  kill  it  every  time.  This  is 
their  nature.  Now,  if  all  chickens,  turkeys  and  other  fowls 
were  killed  when  sick,  there  would  be  less  weak  stock,  and 
more  healthy,  vigorous  breeding  stock. 

Wild  horses  and  cattle  are  the  same  as  turkeys.  They 
kill  the  stallions  and  bulls.  Only  one  leader  is  allowed,  and 
when  a  leader  gets  old  and  loses  his  strength  the  other  lead- 
ers come  into  the  bunch  and  kill  off  the  leader.  Now  this  I 
have  often  noticed  in  the  west.  So  you  can  see  that  there 
is  no  chance  for  inbreeding.  If  you  are  bound  to  raise  show 
birds  you  can  get  good,  fine  points,  feathers,  laying  and 
market  qualities  by  line  breeding,  getting  new  blood  for  the 
hen  side  and  keeping  a  cockerel  from  the  hen  you  bought  for 
new  blood.  Never  get  a  cockerel  for  new  blood  if  you  are 
breeding  for  show  purposes;  if  you  do  you  will  be  disap- 
pointed; you  loose  ten  years  by  so  doing. 

Pure  blooded  stock  are  the  best  if  only  common  sense  is 
used .  Never  inbreed  nor  breed  from  sickly  stock,  nor  from 
one  that  has  ever  been  sick.  When  buying  new  blood  be 
sure  you  are  buying  from  a  new  strain.  Never  get  of  the 
same  strain;  if  you  do  you  will  inbreed  just  as  sure  as  shoot- 
ing. I  have  black  Leghorns  that  are  just  as  good  as  grow; 
in  fact  they  hold  two  world  records;  no  better  layers  ever 
cackled,  for  winter  and  all  seasons,  and  never  have  been 
beaten  in  a  show-room  in  the  largest  shows  in  the  country. 
I  have  never  inbred  once  in  the  same  line  of  blood.  My  birds 
are  always  looking  for  a  fight.  This  shows  vigor  and  a 
healthy  stock.  I  never  kept  sickly  poultry  and  never 
intend  to. 


20  NATURE   AND   ITS 

The  Cause  of  Roup. 

This  is  the  greatest  drawback  among  poultry  breeders. 
Cold,  catarrh,  swollen  eyes,  etc.  All  writers  on  Poultry  claim 
dampness,  draught,  etc.,  causes  it.  This  is  a  mistake.  If 
you  want  roup  among  your  fowls,  fall  and  winter,  feed  them 
all  the  meat  they  will  eat  every  day  for  two  weeks,  fresh 
meat  from  the  butchers,  and  also  feed  them  on  rich  foods  of 
all  kinds,  and  you  will  have  roup  in  ten  days.  In  the  sum- 
mer it-affects  them  differently.  They  will  then  get  liver  dis- 
eases and  indigestion.  In  winter,  if  fed  on  rich  foods,  they 
get  a  high  fever,  106  or  more  distemper  sets  in,  their  heads 
get  very  hot.  This  is  very -dangerous,  and  if  the  fowl  should 
get  over  the  high  fever,  they  generally  get  poor  and  grow 
light,  all  feathers  and  bone,  and  the  lice  will  soon  make 
quick  work  of  the  remaining  meat  and  blood.  If  roup  ever 
gets  into  a  flock,  it  means  a  lot  of  dead  ones,  especially  if 
the  roupy  bird  smells  very  badly.  I  have  seen  thousands 
die  of  roup.  This  means  a  great  loss,  and. is  one  great  reason 
why  those  failed  who  went  into  the  poultry  business. 

How  to  Prevent   Roup,   Colds,    Diphtheria,    Catarrh,  Swollen 
Eyes,  Etc. 

If  common  sense  and  judgment  is  used  in  feeding  and 
housing  you  will  never  be  bothered  with  roup  or  colds  of 
any  kind.  Wild  birds  never  have  colds  and  our  birds  are 
nothing  but  wild  birds  domesticated.  The  first  hen  was  a 
jungle  fowl  and  has  been  bred  up  until  now  there  are  over 
150  different  breeds  of  pure  stock.  Above  all  don't  breed 
from  any  sick  stock.  Never  keep  a  hen  around  that  is  sick, 
and  never  in-breed.  They  have  been  in-bred  dozens  of  times 
before  you  got  them,  so  don't  you  do  it  again.  Now  in  feed- 
ing Poultry,  feed  only  "what  grows  in  the  field,  in  the  way 
of  grain,  seeds,  etc. 

Above  all  build  common  sense  houses.  Housing  is  of 
the  greatest  importance.  A  wild  bird  lives  out  doors  every 


NATURAL   LAWS. 


21 


day  in  the  year,  in  all  climates  and  weather,  and  always  has 
free  range,  so  notice  what  I  say  about  free  range.  Don't 
lock  them  up.  Give  them  liberty,  don't  make  prisoners  of 
them.  They  never  will  do  well  nor  lay  half  as  many  egg's 
nor  half  as  many  fertile  eggs  if  kept  fenced  in. 

In  this  book  you  will  find  blue  prints  of  poultry  houses 
of  my  own  plans,  and  if  these  houses  are  used  you  will  find 
them  cheap  and  healthy  for  Poultry.  These  plans  cost  me  a 
lot  of  money  and  time  and  are  a  matter  of  twenty-five  years 
experimenting  with  all  kinds  of  houses.  I  have  made  hun- 
dreds of  different  kinds  of  houses  and  find  these  the  best. 

Feeding  to  Prevent  Disease. 

In  winter,  say  December,  feed  in  morning  wheat,  one 
handful  to  two  birds,  in  straw,  at  noon  a  little  cabbage, 
whole  heads  and  at  three  o'clock  feed  them  corn,  one  hand- 
ful to  two  birds.  Next  day  oats  in  the  morning  and  at  noon 
feed  barley,  at  night,  corn.  Every  day  feed  a  different  kind 
of  grain;  that  is,  don't  feed  corn  all  the  time,  nor  wheat 
every  day,  but  three  times  a  week,  in  other  words  feed  a 
variety.  Onions  every  other  day  cut  up.  As  to  mash,  don't 
feed  much  of  it  unless  you  want  sick  fowls.  Once  or  twice 
a  week  at  noon  feed  oats  that  have  been  soaked  in  hot  water 
half  a  day.  Pour  off  all  the  water,  then  mix  bran  and 
ground  food  with  the  oats,  this  makes  a  dry  crumbly  mash, 
not  hot  and  the  gizzard  will  have  a  little  grinding  to  do.  If 
all  the  food  was  ground  the  gizzard  would  be  idle  and  the 
fowl  would  overload  its  stomach  by  eating  too  much.  This 
would  cause  a  disorder,  indigestion  and  fever  will  start,  and 
finally  roup  and  cold.  Don't  either  starve  or  over  feed  ttiem, 
but  keep  them  in  goodflesh, never  feed  powders  or  medicine. 
Feed  fresh  cracked  bone  twice  a  week  and  one  handful  to 
twenty-five  birds,  not  meat  but  bone.  A  bone  cutter  will 
be  of  great  help.  Humphreys  Bone  Cutter  is  the  best,  easy 
to  work  and  cheap.  If  you  want  to  feed  meat  boil  it  first 
then  it  will  be  good,  otherwise  it  is  dangerous.  Also  always 


22  NATURE   AND   ITS 

keep  cut  clover  hay  before  the  Poultry.  This  is  what  Poul- 
try want.  A  cow  or  horse  could  not  live  without  it,  nor 
Poultry  keep  healthy.  Notice  hens  in  spring-.  They  will 
almost  gorge  themselves  with  old  grass.  They  want  some- 
thing bulky,  and  clover  hay  has  lots  of  lime  in  it  to  make 
eggs.  Don't  forget  this  clover,  green  food  and  grain  of  all 
kinds  and  cracked  fresh  bone  and  water,  blood  warm  in 
winter  and  milk.  If  you  have  pullets  early  hatched  and  of 
a  laying  strain  you  can  get  twenty-five  eggs  out  of  every  150 
fowls  every  day  in  the  winter  and  in  the  spring  you  will  get 
seventy-five. 

Have  your  house  front  south  and  let  them  out  every  day, 
or  if  too  stormy  open  the  windows  if  not  too  cold.  Fresh 
air  and  sun  are  the  greatest  health  preservers  we  have  for 
all  living  beings. 

A  dust  box  in  front  of  every  window  in  each  house  will 
do  a  great  deal  for  health.  They  dust  themselves  to  keep 
clean  the  same  as  we  take  a  bath,  whether  they  have  lice  or 
not.  A  little  air  slacked  lime  thrown  in  every  house  will 
sweeten  it  and  prevent  dampness.  It  is  also  one  of  the  best 
disinfectants  we  have.  Poultry  also  like  a  box  of  coal 
ashes,  it  makes  them  lay,  makes  their  combs  red  and  is  as 
healthy  as  charcoal  for  them.  They  get  lots  of  egg  forming 
food  out  of  the  ashes. 

Ventilation  is  not  necessary.  Never  have  a  ventilator 
in  a  hen  house.  The  best  ventilator  is  to  keep  the  house 
clean,  that  is,  clean  out  the  manure  and  don't  crowd  too 
many  in  one  small  house,  Never  use  drop  boards  if  you  can 
help  it,  unless  you  clean  them  every  day.  If  you  have  drop 
boards  keep  the  boards  about  three  feet  away  from  roosting 
poles,  then  the  fowls  won't  breathe  in  the  foul  air  all  night 
long.  This  is  very  dangerous  and  causes  consumption.  The 
best  way  to  air  a  house  is  to  open  the  windows  every  day, 
closing  them  as  night.  Don't  close  house  up  tight  in  mild 
weather,  but  keep  the  window  open  a  little,  a.nd  from  April 
to  Thanksgiving  day  keep  all  the  windows  open  and  let  in 
all  the  air  possible,  and  then  in  hot  weather  keep  houses  a. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  <£<> 

little  dark,  that  is,  don't  let  in  the  sunlight  in  the  houses  all 
day  long.     A  dark  house  is  cool  in  summer. 

Spring  and  Summer  Care. 

In  early  spring  give  them  free  range  and  don't  house  200t 
to  1,000  hens  in  one  bunch.  Keep  colony  houses  all  over  the 
farm,  100  to  200  yards  apart,  the  latter  is  better,  then  they 
will  not  run  over  the  same  range,  nor  will  they  all  go  in  one 
l\ouse.  The  house  shown  in  blue  print  is  twenty-four  foot 
long  including  scratching  shed.  This  will  house  fifty  to 
seventy-five  hens  easily  if  011  free  range,  and  they  will  do- 
better  than  300  hens  yarded  up  in  pens.  Try  it.  Outside  of 
house  keep  a  dust  box  covered  with  boards  so  that  the  rain, 
cannot  wet  the  dust.  The  box  should  be  4x4  feet  and  8  in- 
ches deep.  Common  clay  dust  is  the  best  with  a  little  air 
slacken  lime  in  it.  In  very  hot  weather  you  must  see  that 
the  hens  have  shade. 

Spray  kerosene  oil  all  over  the  house,  roosts  and  sidesr 
to  kill  the  lice.  You  will  find  them  under  roosts,  poles  and 
in  the  cracks.  Every  two  weeks  spray  gasoline  over  the 
fowls.  Gasoline  is  the  best,  surest,  safest  and  cheapest  lice 
killer  to  use.  It  never  hurts  them  in  any  way,  but  don't 
have  a  lamp  or  lantern  near  the  house  when  spraying. 

Thousands  of  fowls  are  killed  by  lice,  especially  in  the- 
fall,  when  the  hens  are  moulting.  They  are  weak  then  and 
you  will  always  find  lice  on  them,  under  the  tail  feathers 
and  all  over  them.  The  body  lice,  those  long,  large  yellow 
ones,  will  kill  a  hen  in  short  order  when  they  are  moulting.. 
Sometimes  a  cupfull  of  lice  are  on  one  hen.  Now  just  imag- 
ine one  hen  louse  on  your  head.  The  lice  prevent  the  hens- 
from  moulting,  laying,  etc.  So  keep  off  the  lice. 

A  rooster  very  seldom  takes  a  dust  bath,  so  spray  him 
often  with  gasoline,  as  the  rooster  is  the  most  important  of 
the  whole  flock,  especially  during  the  breeding  season. 

Keep  three  cocks  or  cockerels  among  fifty  to  seventy-five 
hens;  they  will  not  fight  when  on  range,  and  each  rooster 


:24 


NATURE   AND   ITS 


will  go  on  range  with  his  little  flock  and  thereby  he  will  have 
different  hens  every  day,  and  then  you  will  get  fertile  eggs. 

During-  the  moulting-  season  feed  the  hens  cabbage,  sun- 
flowers, milk  and  fresh-cracked  bone.  This  will  make  them 
anoult  early  and  make  the  feathers  grow.  If  you  have  a 
•cockerel  you  want  to  show  as  a  cock  in  the  shows,  pull  his 
tail  feathers  out  in  September.  This  will  make  his  tail 
feathers  grow  out  and  be  matured  when  shown  in  the  winter. 
Thus  you  will  score  two  points  pn  tail;  this  goes  a  great  way 
toward  winning  a  prize. 

Be  sure  that  your  hens  are  free  from  lice .  If  you  see  i 
lien  with  a  look  on  her  as  if  she  was  starving,  she  is  lousef. 
If  the  cock  has  glassy  eyes  and  rough  looking  plumage,  aid 
generally  drags  his  tail,  the  lice  are  eating  him  up  and  drink- 
ing every  drop  of  blood  in  the  bird.  Take  care  of  them /in 
time  and  don't  wait  until  it  is  too  late.  A  stitch  in  time 
.saves  nine. 

Cholera  comes  in  the  fall.  The  cause  of  cholera  is  that 
-the  hens  are  too  fat.  Corn  will  do  it  quicker  than  any  other 
"thing,  so  don't  feed  corn  to  hens  in  summer.  Once  a  week  is 
plenty.  Oats,  wheat,  millet  and  free  range  is  good  for  them. 
Always  keep  lime  in  the  water  on  hot  days.  Grit,  sharp 
«tones  pounded  up;  buy  mica  crystal  grit,  or  common  crushed 
stone  No.  1;  such  as  is  used  on  the  streets  is  good. 

Hens  on  a  range  in  the  fall  wont  need  much  grain  or 

food;  they  will  find  lots  of  bugs  and  grasshoppers.    One  feed 

a  day  of  oats  and  wheat  screenings  is  plenty  for  hens  on  a 

;f ree  range.     Always  keep  lots  of  fresh  water  in  a  cool  place 

-and  clean  out  the  pail  every  day. 

Nothing  is  better  than  cabbage  for  hens  in  the  fall.  I 
tthrow  one  head  of  cabbage  to  thirty  hens  every  other  day, 
^when  they  are  -moulting,  and  all  the  skimmilk  they  will 
-drink.  When  on  the  roost  at  night  in  the  hot  summer 
weather,  keep  one  side  of  the  house  open,  with  a  wire  front 
and  if  any  dogs  or  two-legged  animals  are  around  lock  the 
•door,  and  they  will  still  have  plenty  of  air,  as  the  east  side 
is  all  open,  except  for  the  poultry  wire.  This  will  keep  out 


CIIINKSK   LANGSHANS. 


POULTRY  BREEDING  STOCK. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  25 

skunks,  minks,  etc.  If  you  leave  an  opening  about  8x10 
inches,  five  feet  from  the  floor,  the  hens  can  all  go  out  at 
four  o'ciock  in  the  morning1,  \vhile  you  are  still  sleeping1. 
You  will  find  the  hens  out  looking-  for  bugs  and  grasshop- 
pers, which  are  easy  to  catch,  as  the  dew  makes  the  grass 
and  their  wings  wet,  so  that  they  cannot  fly. 

Corn  is  the  best  food  for  chickens  if  you  know  how  to 
feed  it,  and  when  to  feed  it,  and  how  often.  The  feeder 
must  use  his  judgment.  I  personally  feed  corn,  cracked, 
nearly  every  day  in  the  winter  and  spring,  but  very  little, 
and  sometimes  none  at  all,  for  a  month  in  hot  weather.  Corn 
makes  strong,  fertile  eggs,  and  you  will  find  the  yolk  a 
a  rich  yellow  color  when  you  feed  it.  If  your  hens  show 
loose  yellow  droppings  and  are  drinking  all  the  time,  feed 
them  nothing  at  all  for  a  week  or  more.  Put  lime  in  the 
water,  feed  cabbage,  no  grain  at  all,  but  lots  of  grit.  The 
lime,  if  stirred  up,  makes  the  water  white,  and  sweetens  the 
water,  and  prevents  looseness  of  the  bowels.  You  will 
notice  that  a  fat  hen  gets  sick  first,  and  if  not  careful  the 
whole  lot  will  die  of  cholera;  in  other  words  over-fat  hens 
cannot  stand  hot  weather,  and  it  will  kill  them.  Therefore 
don't  keep  your  hens  hog  fat  and  don't  feed  them  too  much 
corn.  In  fact,  don't  feed  any  corn  at  all  during  September 
and  October,  then  feed  them  all  they  will  eat  every  night. 

While  hens  are  coming  to  moult,  and  are  two  years  old, 
sell  them,  keeping  only  the  pullets,  unless  you  want  a  few 
hens  to  breed  from.  Hens  are  better  breeders  than  pullets 
if  you  want  strong,  healthy  stock. 

Fall  Care. 

About  November  20  the  hens  should  all  be  sold  except 
a  few  of  the  best  stock,  held  over  for  next  spring  breeders, 
Pullets  are  the  best  winter  layers,  and  twenty-five  out  of 
every  hundred  will  lay  every  day  during  the  winter.  When 
it  gets  so  cold  that  the  ground  freezes  hard  move  all  the 
colony  houses  near  the  house  or  some  place  where  it  is  handy 


6V  X  A  TUBE   AND   ITS 

to  feed  and  care  for  the  stock.  All  the  houses  should  be  so 
built  that  they  can  be  moved  out  in  the  field  in  early  spring 
and  back  to  the  house  in  early  winter.  This  is  the  cheapest 
way  to  make  the  Poultry  business  pay.  If  you  build  long 
houses,  say  one  hundred  to  three  hundred  feet  long,  all  in 
one,  it  costs  a  lot  of  money  to  build  it,  and  the  fences  are 
another  high  cost,  and  it  will  never  pay.  When  I  see  a  plant 
going  up  with  a  long  house  for  market  purposes,  and  a  lot  of 
money  put  in  fences,  I  know  it  will  not  pay,  and  ninety-nine 
out  of  every  one  hundred  fail.  Just  as  soon  as  you  imprison 
your  fowls  you  will  never  make  pay.  Now,  why  the  long 
houses  and  fencing  don't  pay  is  a  matter  of  many  years 
experimenting  with  me  at  a  very  high  cost. 

Why  Long  Houses  Don't  Pay. 

1.  A  long  laying  and  brooder  house  is  too  costly,  and 
if  yarded  only  twelve  to  fifteen  hens  can  be  kept  in  one  pen. 
2.  The  fencing  costs  as  much  as  the  lumber  for  the  house 
for  one  pen.  3.  The  fowls  will  not  lay  as  many  eggs  as  if 
they  were  on  free  range.  4.  The  poultry  are  not  as  healthy 
when  yarded.  5.  It  is  not  nature  for  poultry  to  be  yarded. 
Poultry  want  free  range,  the  same  as  the  birds  of  the  air. 
All  around,  it  never  pays  to  yard  them. 

How  to  Make  It  Pay.. ..Free  Range  and  Liberty.. ..Colony  House 
Plan.... For  Market  and  Fancy. 

A  colony  house  costs  only  half  as  much  as  a  pen  house 
will,  and  a  house  12x12  with  a  shed  attached,  will  house 
fifty  hens  easily  and  not  be  crowded.  Why?  Because  they 
are  on  free  range  all  the  time  and  you  can  put  four  times  as 
many  in  this  style  of  house.  They  lay  better  and  do  better 
all  around.  No  fencing  is  necessary,  and  you  can  move  the 
houses  when  and  where  you  like  with  little  cost,  where  a 
long  house  never  can  be  moved.  A  long  house  is  very 


NATURAL   LAWS.  27 

unhandy,  and  plowing-  is  out  of  the  question.  The  yards 
should  be  plowed  at  least  every  two  years,  and  as  the  fences 
are  in  the  way  it  cannot  be  done,  and  to  do  it  with  a  spade 
is  a  waste  of  time  and  money.  The  manure  in  the  yards 
should  be  plowed  up.  Now,  with  the  birds  out  in  the  range 
in  the  colony  houses,  the  ground  does  not  need  to  be  plowed, 
as  they  are  very  seldom  about  the  house,  and  the  manure  is 
scattered  all  over  the  range.  The  yarded  fowls  must  take 
their  medicine.  The  ground  in  the  fenced  yards  is  full  of 
manure  and  germs,  which  cause  sick  poultry.  One  reason 
why  wild  birds  are  never  sick  is  that  they  are  always  free, 
and  seldom  are  on  one  place  a  second  time. 

There  is  no  use  trying  it.  It  will  never  do  to  fool  with 
nature  and  if  you  do  it  it  will  cost  more  for  the  experiment 
than  you  will  ever  get  out  of  it. 

The  Colony  House  in  Winter. 

In  winter  the  houses  should  be  double  boarded  inside 
with  building  paper  between.  Never  use  tar  paper  as  it 
draws  the  frost  and  you  will  have  your  houses  white  with 
frost  in  the  winter  if  you  use  it.  It  is  not  good  for  this  pur- 
pose. Don't  try  it.  If  you  have  fifty  birds  in  these  houses 
their  own  animal  heat  will  keep  them  warm  in  winter  at 
night  and  in  the  morning  let  them  out  in  the  scratching 
shed,  open  to  the  south.  This  gives  them  air,  sun  and  exer- 
cise, and  keeps  them  out  of  the  snow  and  the  rain  cannot 
wet  the  straw.  You  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  many  eggs 
your  pullets  will  lay  in  this  style  of  house  and  the  small  cost 
and  labor  of  caring  for  them.  On  the  floor  of  their  houses 
use  about  six  inches  of  cinders  and  then  gravel  over  this, 
then  a  few  inches  of  sand  over  the  gravel.  This  makes  a 
dry  floor  and  rats  will  not  work  into  the  cinders. 

Ten  colony  houses  will  house  500  fowls  and  should  not 
cost  more  than  $20  each,  including  the  scratching  sheds,  or 
a  house  with  shed,  12x2 1.  A  long  laying  fancy  breeding 
house  will  cost  $1,000  to  house  500  hens.  You  s&ve  just  $800 


28  NATURE    AND   ITS 

in  building  alone  to  say  nothing-  about  results,  as  to  profits 
and  healthy  stock.  Another  thing1  about  these  colony 
houses,  it  takes  just  half  the  time  to  care  for  the  Poultry  as 
it  would  if  you  had  the  long-  houses.  In  a  long1  Poultry 
house  there  is  a  draught  unless  you  board  up  tight  every 
pen  to  the  roof.  A  200  foot  house  is  dangerous  in  case  of 
fire  or  contagious  disease,  but  some  have  these  houses  1,000 
feet  long.  Now  I  have  seen  over  a  hundred  fail  in  this  style 
of  house  because  when  a  contagious  disease  like  roup  or 
cholera  got  in  the  house  it  was  all  over  the  house  and  every 
one  of  them  got  the  same  disease  and  all  died.  Now  if  a 
contagious  disease  breaks  out  in  one  of  these  small  houses 
you  would  not  lose  many  as  each  house  is  separate  from  all 
the  rest.  Now  reader,  don't  you  think  there  is  something  in 
in  that?  It  is  my  experience,  at  least.  If  you  are  going  in 
the  market  business  don't  waste  time  and  money  in  building 
fancy  houses  and  yards  and  make  people  believe  that  you 
are  in  the  fancy  Poultry  business  by  having  separate  yards 
and  a  different  breed  of  poultry  in  every  pen.  This  will 
*oon  fade  away.  If  you  want  a  few  show  birds,  pen  them 
up,  say  six  in  each  pen  and  give  them  20x150  feet  of  yard 
room  and  you  will  not  be  bothered  with  disease  much.  But 
it  costs  too  much  to  fence  and  house  1,000  or  more  hens  in 
this  style. 

The  Causes  of  Failure  are  Many. 

One  principle  cause  is  that  the  right  kind  of  judg- 
ment is  not  used,  for  instance  a  man  will  take  a  piece 
of  paper. and  pencil  and  figure  like  this.  My  ten  hens  layed 
200  eggs  per  year,  and  each  hen  netted  me  $2.  Now  1,000 
hens  will  net  me  $2,000  cash,  clear  profit.  But  in  doing  so 
they  never  look  ahead  and  use  common  sense.  Ten  hens 
had  the  run  of  the  farm  and  all  the  room  and  bugs,  grass- 
hoppers and  worms  they  wanted.  They  layed  well  and 
raised  fifty  chicks  or  more.  Now,  this  man  figures  1,000 
hens  will  make  him  $2,000  cash.  I  will  go  and  get  1,000  hens, 


NATURAL   LAWS.  29 

build  a  long1  poultry  house,  fence  them  in  and  I  am  O.  K. 
But  he  finds,  as  many  others  have,  that  crowding-,  fencing- 
and  yarding1  Poultry  is  not  a  success,  and  he  fails.  A  hun- 
dred diseases  get  at  his  stock,  they  did  not  lay,  and  he  quits- 
in  disgust.  But  if  this  man  had  given  these  1,000  hens  the 
same  chance  those  ten  hens  had,  he  would  certainly  have 
made  it  pay.  In  other  words,  he  should  have  put  them  out 
in  the  field  in  colony  houses  200  yards  apart  in  the  spring, 
and  so  arranged  that  the  1,000  hens  would  not  range  over 
the  same  ground.  For  instance,  you  have  a  Poultry  house 
near  your  barn.  Keep,  say  100  hens,  and  those  hens  will 
range  over  the  range  every  day  on  the  same  ground  and  go- 
back  at  night  and  roost.  If  you  had  a  large  house,  the 
chances  are  poor  for  each  hen  getting  a  full  crop  of  bugs- 
and  worms,  and  not  only  that,  when  roosting  in  a  house  full 
of  200  hens  it  is  not  healthy  because  of  so  much  manure  and 
bad  air.  Breathing  in  the  same  air  causes  disease.  They 
sweat  all  night  and  on  coming  down  in  the  cold  morning  air 
catch  colds.  Now,  if  the  hens  are  divided  off  into  small 
lots  all  over  the  farm  they  are  not  overrun  on  the  range 
nor  over  crowded  in  the  houses.  If  the  sheds  are  open  on 
one  side  the  air  is  always  pure  and  sweet  and  the  birds  have 
all  the  room  they  want  on  the  roost  and  do  very  well  both 
for  eggs  and  for  the  market.  If  I  could  convince  a  wealthy 
man  that  this  colony  house  Poultry  farming  would  pay  and 
he  would  invest  $10,000  in  a  farm  and  plant,  and  stock  it  up, 
I  would  manage  it  for  half  of  what  there  was  in  it  any  time, 
after  it  was  well  started.  This  pays  better  than  fancy 
Poultry  for  show  and  for  breeding  stock  by  far.  If  you 
want  to  go  in  for  the  fancy  business  it  takes  ten  years  of  ad- 
vertising, at  a  cost  of  $5,000,  then  another  $5,000  for  house 
machinery,  etc.,  and  $3,000  for  fancy  show  stock;  hire  an  ex- 
pert at  $75  to  $100  a  month  and  pay  $50  to  $100  at  every  show 
for  entrance  fees,  and  with  other  expenses  there  is  very  lit- 
tle money  in  it  after  all  the  expenses  are  paid.  You  must 
also  spend  a  large  part  of  the  night  writing  letters  to  those 
who  want  eggs,  stock,  etc.  I  have  been  through  it  all,  and 


30  NATUEE  AND   ITS 

know  just  what  I  am  talking-  about.     If  you  are  well  adver- 
tised it  pays,  otherwise  not. 

Market  Poultry  Pays. 

It  always  will  pay.  In  the  year  1900  $500,000,000  was 
spent  for  all  kinds  of  Poultry,  ducks,  turkeys  and  geese,  and 
eggs.  And  still  this  country  had  to  buy  abroad.  More 
money  is  made  from  Poultry  than  from  wheat.  More  than 
from  corn,  horses,  hogs,  gold,  silver  or  iron.  The  only  stock 
that  has  beaten  Poultry  is  railroad  stock.  This  is  a  matter 
of  government  statistics.  Look  it  up  and  see  for  yourself. 

If  anyone  says  the  Poultry  business  will  be  overdone, 
tell  him  that  it  was  forty  years  ago  when  the  incubators 
were  first  made.  But  instead,  Poultry  and  eggs  are  higher 
to-day  than  ever  before,  and  not  only  that  but  we  buy  6,000,- 
000  eggs  from  Canada  every  year  to  supply  the  demand. 
Then  too,  we  are  growing  every  year,  and  so  are  the  Poul- 
try, and  the  feathers  are  used  more,  and  the  eggs  are  used 
more  in  the  arts  and  elsewhere  for  photography,  dying, 
glue,  etc.  Every  year  there  are  new  uses  for  the  eggs. 
Ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  fail  who  go  into  the  Poul- 
try business  because  they  don't  know  how,  but  it  must  also 
be  remembered  that  about  ninety-six  out  of  every  hundred 
fail  in  every  other  business.  If  you  want  to  make  a  success 
of  any  business  you  must  like  it  first,  then  you  will  make  it 
go.  But  if  you  are  looking  for  the  dollars  on  the  trees  you 
will  never  make  it  pay. 

There  is  money  in  pure  bred  poultry  and  lots  of  it,  but 
there  is  more  money  in  market  poultry  and  for  egg  consider- 
ing expenses,  etc. 

I  have  personally  made  money  in  fancy  poultry,  also  in 
poultry  for  the  market,  but  it  takes  long  experience  in  breed- 
ing show  birds,  and  one  must  know  how  to  mate  to  win  in 
shows,  and  above  all  you  cannot  raise  winners  with  fifty 
cent  Poultry.  $100  for  a  hen  or  cock  is  an  every  day  occur- 
rence and  as  high  as  $500  has  been  paid  for  one  bird.  Eggs 


NATURAL   LAWS.  31 

sell  $1  to  $15  per  thirteen  egg's,  if  you  have  the  right  kind  of 
stock.  Farmers  sell  eggs  in  the  spring  for  eight  cents  per 
dozen  in  the  stores  while  I  sell  them  at  $5  per  thirteen,  and 
thousands  of  other  breeders  do  the  same  thing.  If  you  go 
into  the  Poultry  business  for  the  market  look  up  private 
trade,  and  you  get  twenty-five  per  dozen  easily  for  your 
eggs  the  year  round.  But  you  must  stamp  each  egg  and 
guarantee  them  fresh  laM  and  not  over  three  days  old. 
Thousands  of  rich  families  will  pay  fifteen  to  twenty  cents 
above  store  prices  if  eggs  are  fresh  and  come  from  reliable 
poultrymen,  and  you  can  always  get  eighty  to  ninety  cent 
for  a  three  pound  spring  chicken  if  you  get  them  in  May  and 
June.  Hatch  them  in  an  incubator  and  raise  them  by 
brooders  and  it  will  pay  you  well.  If  you  go  in  for  the  fancy 
poultry  business,  advertise  and  show  your  stock.  It  certain- 
ly will  pay  to  advertise  heavily  the  year  round.  It  pays  me 
well  in  the  fancy  poultry  business,  but  I  am  warning  those 
who  are  not  experienced  to  go  slow  and  learn  to  walk  first. 

Incubators  and  Brooders.. ..How  to  Manage  Them  Successfully. 

Round  incubators  are  the  best.  The  incubator  house 
should  be  half  in  the  ground,  say  four  feet  in  and  four 
feet  out,  windows  in  the  east  side  only  and  a  ventilator  in 
the  top.  This  kind  of  a  house  will  have  an  even  tempera- 
ture the  year  round.  The  roof  should  be  double  boarded 
with  a  four  inch  air  space,  the  room  should  be  clean  and  no 
other  truck  in  it  except  incubators.  It  should  not  be  very 
light  and  not  damp,  but  should  have  a  sweet  smell  and  lots 
of  pure  fresh  air,  no  draught,  windows  open  to  the  east  only, 
floor  of  sand,  no  board  floor,  the  only  wood  to  be  the  sup- 
ports of  the  incubators.  The  machine  must  be  set  level,  this 
gives  an  even  heat  all  over  the  machine. 

How  to  Start  an  Incubator  with  Eggs  in  it. 

Above  all  never  save  the  eggs  longer  than  eight  days  for 
incubators.  Should  all  be  of  a  size  and  of  one  breed.  Bet- 


32  NATURE    AND   ITS 

ter  results  are  had  by  doing  so.  With  hens  eggs  start  the 
incubator  at  101^  degrees  the  first  week  with  thermometer 
bulb  between  the  eggs.  Do  not  stand  the  thermometer  up, 
but  lay  it  down  between  the  eggs  with  the  top  a  little  above 
the  bulb  end,  so  you  can  see  it  without  opening  the  door. 
On  the  second  day  turn  the  eggs,  each  and  every  one.  Mark 
the  eggs  and  you  can  see  when  they  are  all  turned.  Now, 
air  these  eggs  ten  to  fifteen  minutes  every  day  for  a  week 
and  turn  every  egg  twice  a  day.  During  the  second  week 
turn  the  eggs  three  times  a  day  and  the  thermometer  should 
show  102|.  Air  the  eggs  twenty  minutes  every  other  day. 
During  the  third  week  turn  the  eggs  three  times  a  day  and 
air  them  every  other  day  forty  minutes  in  hot  weather,  and 
an  hour  on  the  alternate  days.  The  thermometer  should 
show  103|  degrees  the  last  week.  On  the  nineteenth  day 
stop  airing  and  turning.  The  air  space  should  then  be  one- 
third  of  the  egg.  The  chick  should  pip  the  shell  on  the 
morning  of  the  twentieth  day. 

Now  when  the  chicks  come  out  on  the  twenty-first  day 
close  up  all  the  ventilators.  This  keeps  in  the  moisture  from 
the  chicks  after  breaking  the  shell.  If  you  don't  close  the 
ventilators  the  air  passes  through  and  carries  out  the  mois- 
ture, and  moisture  you  must  have  just  at  this  time.  You 
should  try  to  get  along  without  putting  in  water  for  mois- 
ture as  it  drowns  the  chicks  in  the  egg  by  too  much  moisture. 
The  water,  together  with  the  heat  makes  the  chicks  grow 
too  fast  in  the  eggs  and  they  cannot  break  the  shells. 

When  the  chicks  are  all  hatched,  which  should  be  on  the 
twenty-first  day,  open  all  the  ventilators.  Any  chick  which 
hatches  after  the  twenty-first  day  is  weakly  and  not  worth 
saving,  and  will  die  sooner  or  later.  When  the  chicks  have 
been  in  the  incubator  fifteen  hours  and  are  all  dry  open  the 
incubator  door  a  little.  This  is  to  get  them  used  to  the  out- 
side air.  In  opening  the  door  the  thermometer  should 
show  95  degrees  in  the  rear  of  the  incubator  one  inch  from 
the  floor.  When  the  chicks  are  thirty  hours  old,  take  them 
out  and  put  them  in  a  box  with  sand  on  the  floor,  and  a 


NATURAL   LAWS.  33 

cover  over  them  to  prevent  chilling.  Put  them  in  the  brood- 
er heated  anywhere  from  95  to  100  degrees  two  inches  from 
the  floor.  See  that  the  brooder  has  two  inches  of  sand  on 
the  floor.  Never  have  straw  on  a  brooder  floor.  There 
should  be  a  proper  ventilation  in  the  mother  in  the  center  of 
the  hover.  Not  a  direct  draught,  but  a  perfect  slow  passing 
air  going  and  coming  into  the  mother  at  all  times.  This 
prevents  weak  lungs  and  consumption.  The  brooder  should 
be  of  no  hot  dry  heat  kind  If  the  brooder  has  a  hot  dry 
heat  you  will  not  raise  half  of  the  chicks,  because  the  heat 
is  not  natural.  A  moist  heat  is  natural  and  if  given  all  the 
fresh  air  the  chicks  want,  they  will  never  be  bothered  with 
weak  legs,  bowel  troubles,  etc.  If  you  hatch  1,000  chicks 
and  only  raise  one-third  of  the  number  it  will  not  pay.  It 
pays  to  buy  a  Natural  Hen  Brooder,  a  brooder  that  has  nat- 
ural heat  and  ventilation  and  will  heat  up  in  ten  minutes 
any  time. 

Feeding  Chicks. 

• 

When  the  chicks  are  forty-eight  hours  old,  feed  them 
their  first  food,  dry  bread  crumbs.  Two  hours  later  oat 
meal  flakes,  and  then  every  three  hours  feed  them  a  differ- 
ent food.  Always  feed  them  dry  food,  never  wet.  When 
they  are  three  to  five  days  old  feed  cracked  corn,  cracked 
wheat,  a  little  millet  seed,  hay  seed,  cracked  corn  roasted 
and  bread  toasted;  boiled  milk  three  times  a  week  and 
onions  cut  up.  Never  let  them  drink  cold  water,  as  it 
causes  bowel  trouble  and  cramps. 

When  chicks  are  three  days  old,  if  the  weather  permits, 
let  them  out  doors  in  the  air  and  sun.  and  give  them  free 
run  of  the  yard,  and  when  fifteen  days  old  free  range.  Never 
feed  until  their  crops  are  empty,  and  keep  them  scratching 
in  straw  when  three  days  old.  Be  sure  and  feed  them  a  dif- 
ferent grain  at  every  meal  every  day.  Never  try  to  raise 
them  on  one  kind  of  feed,  it  does  not  pay  and  you  will  not 
raise  one-half  of  the  chicks.  A  variety  makes  them  grow 


34  NATURE    AND   ITS 

• 

fast  and  keeps  them  healthy.  When  the  chicks  are  four 
'weeks  old  keep  them  out  doors,  that  is,  brooders  and  all, 
and  "when  they  are  six  weeks  old,  keep  a  box  of  cracked  corn 
before  them  all  the  time  and  they  will  grow  like  weeds,  will 
soon  tire  of  cracked  corn  and  will  look  for  bugs  and  worms. 
If  they  don't  get  enough  on  the  range  they  will  come  to 
their  cracked  corn  and  will  not  be  hungry.  They  will  keep 
growing  and  will  not  get  fat.  They  always  have  an  appe- 
tite, like  a  young  duck,  and  eat  all  the  day  long,  but  in  do- 
ing this  give  them  free  range,  not  yarded. 

Look  for  head  lice  and  use  gasoline  on  their  heads  and 
necks.  Do  this  every  month,  and  you  will  be  surprised  to 
see  those  chicks  grow.  When  they  are  seven  to  eight  weeks 
old  they  will  not  need  any  more  brooder  heat,  and  should 
be  put  in  a  roosting  coop  or  in  a  combination  brooder  and 
roosting  coop  as  shown  on  the  blue  print.  This  coop  is  the 
best  roosting  coop  yet  placed  on  the  market.  You  will  see 
it  has  two  stories,  the  upper  and  lower  each  about  eighteen 
inches  high,  and  a  round  hover,  with  cloth  the  same  as  a 
brooder  hover.  This  is  used  for  chicks  six  to  ten  weeks  old. 
The  mother  is  forty  inches  in  diameter,  and  has  perfect  ven- 
tilation. Their  own  animal  heat  keeps  them  warm.  This 
brooder  will  house  100  or  more  up  to  ten  weeks  old.  When 
they  are  ten  weeks  old,  train  them  to  go  up  to  the  top  floor, 
on  the  roosts  and  put  lath  over  the  doors  so  that  the  older 
chicks  cannot  go  through  into  the  lower  floor.  In  this  way 
you  can  keep  the  coops  going  all  summer.  You  can  make  a 
lot  of  them  if  you  intend  raising  a  lot  of  poultry  and  you 
will  never  like  anything  better  on  the  farm  than  this  coop. 
You  can  keep  pullets  in  this  coop  until  late  fall  and  raise 
them  healthy.  They  will  not  sweat  and  catch  cold  as  there 
is  plenty  of  air  around  roosts.  The  coop  is  rain  proof,  and 
cats  and  minks  cannot  get  at  the  chicks.  The  greatest 
blunders  have  been  made  on  chicks  after  they  were  eight 
weeks  old.  Poultry  breeders  and  farmers  let  them  hunt 
their  own  roosting  place.  Generally  they  all  go  into  a  box 
or  barrel,  fifty  to  100  in  a  small  space.  They  crowd  to  keep 


NATURAL   LAWS.  35 

warm,  and  crowding-  prevents  growth.  The  greatest  trouble 
is  that  they  sweat  during-  the  night  and  when  morning- 
comes  the  air  is  cold.  They  catch  cold,  roup  sets  in,  half  of 
them  die,  and  you  will  have  nothing-  but  small  measley 
chicks  instead  of  laying  pullets.  This  coop  is  a  matter  of 
years  of  experimenting  and  I  personally  made  it  for  my  own 
use  and  never  had  better  results.  With  it  I  have  raised  pul- 
lets which  layed  at  five  months  old  and  weighed  from  four 
to  seven  pounds  each.  This  kind  of  poultry  win  in  the  poul- 
try shows  and  never  have  been  beaten  in  my  case. 

Always  keep  the  pullets  and  cockerels  separate,  and 
never  allow  a  lot  of  cockerels  to  worry  the  pullets.  The 
cockerels  will  grow  much  faster,  larger  and  heavier  if  alone 
also  the  pullets  grow  and  lay  earlier. 

About  the  middle  of  November  put  the  pullets  in  their 
winter  quarters  and  don't  close  the  house  up  tight.  When 
you  put  them  in  their  new  home,  give  them  plenty  of  air 
and  gradually  close  up  the  house.  You  must  use  a  little 
common  sense  and  judgment  about  it.  You  see,  they  have 
been  used  to  out-door  air  day  and  night  in  an  open  front 
shed  or  coop.  Always  give  them  free  range.  Charcoal  is 
good  for  the  chicks  when  but  a  few  days  old,  as  well  as  for 
the  hens.  Onions  cut  up  fine  are  the  best  doctors  for  fowls 
.as  it  gives  them  an  appetite,  cleans  out  the  system,  serves  as 
green  food  and  prevents  diseases. 

When  the  chicks  are  eight  weeks  old  give  them  milk 
every  day.  It  makes  them  grow. 

Pullets  in  their  new  winter  quarters  should  be  without 
cocks  or  cockerels  until  February.  They  will  grow  larger 
and  lay  better.  Feed  pullets  green  food  of  all  kinds  and 
always  feed  corn  at  night,  all  they  can  eat.  Don't  feed 
much  mash  food,  feed  it  only  twice  a  week  and  mix  grain 
in  the  ground  food  and  always  just  moist,  never  wet.  Keep 
dust  boxes  full  of  fresh  dust  and  keep  the  grit  boxes  full. 
Never  have  drop  boards  within  three  or"  four  feet  of  the 
roosts,  unless  you  clean  them  off  every  day  or  you  will  have 
sickly  pullets  and  hens. 


36  NATURE   AND   ITS' 

In  mating  these  pullets  for  breeding-  use  a  cock  over  one 
year  old  and  put  one  cock  for  fifteen  pullets  in  one  pen.  If 
you  are  selling  eggs  for  the  market  you  don't  need  the  cock 
and  the  eggs  will  always  keep  better  if  not  fertilized.  You 
need  not  be  afraid  that  some  one  will  set  the  eggs,  as  the 
pullets  having  been  without  a  cock,  the  eggs  will  not  hatch. 

Pullets  are  the  only  money  makers.  The  hens  do  not 
lay  one-third  as  many  eggs  as  the  pullets  during  the  winter 
and  all  the  hens  over  two  years  old  sell  for  breeders  or  to  a. 
market.  They  sell  best  about  July. 

But  if  you  want  good,  strong,  large,  healthy  chicks  for 
next  year's  layers,  keep  the  eggs  from  the  hens  for  hatch- 
ing. If  you  want  to  keep  eggs  for  hatching  from  pullets  do 
so  from  February  and  March  hatched  pullets,  and  keep  eggs 
for  hatching  after  pullets  are  a  year  old. 

Never  force  hens  or  pullets  to  lay  when  you  want  eggs 
for  hatching,  and  never  feed  mash  food  when  saving  the 
eggs  for  hatching.  Grain  makes  strong  rich  yellow  yolks, 
especially  corn,  and  if  you  force  the  hens  with  all  kinds  of 
powders,  pepper,  etc.,  the  eggs  will  not  hatch  good  nor  be 
very  fertile,  and  most  of  the  chicksi  will  die  in  the  shell. 
Throw  the  grain  in  straw  and  make  them  scratch  for  a  liv- 
ing, but  don't  overdo  that  either.  Keep  them  in  good  flesh, 
and  to  every  pen  or  house  give  them  a  pail  of  coal  ashes. 
This  is  a  great  egg  food  and  is  healthy  for  chickens  of  all 
ages.  So  is  lime  and  charcoal  and  clover  hay  cut  up  fine. 
Never  feed  hot  mashes  or  have  a  stove  in  the  hen  house  in 
winter. 

Water  Fowls  arc  Money  Makers. 

China  Pekin  ducks  are  the  best  money  makers  and  pay 
better  for  marketing  thanj  broilers  or  spring  chickens  be- 
cause they  grow  so  fast.  A  ten  weeks  duckling  often  weighs 
six  pounds  and  in  May  sells  for*-ninety  cents  each  at  that 
age  in  almost  any  market.  This  is  fifteen  cents  per  pound. 
A  spring  chicken  weighs  only  two  pounds  at  ten  weeks  of 


NATURAL   LAWS. 


37 


age  and  sells  for  thirty  cents.  You  will  say  a  duck  eats 
more.  Of  course  they  do,  eat  twice  as  much,  even  at  that 
"there  is  sixty  cents  profit  in  a  duck,  and  it  costs  only  thirty 
cents  to  feed  a  ten  weeks  duckling-  and  a  ten  week  chick 
costs  fifteen  cents  each,  so  you  see  there  is  a  heap  of  differ- 
ence. Duck  business  pays  well  if  the  proper  incubators  and 
brooders  are  used,  and  a  good  manager,  who  understands 
his  business,  is  at  the  head  of  the  concern. 

How  to  Start  in  the  Duck  Business. 

First  of  all  I  want  to  say  that  the  duck  business  is  yery 
hard  work.  Much  harder  than  the  poultry  business  on  a 
very  large  scale.  I  hatched  and  raised  26,000  ducklings  and 
chickens  in  1898  with  twelve  helpers  at  the  Chatham  Fields 
Duck  Ranch,  the  largest  ranch  in  the  west.  We  fed  half  a 
ton  of  ground  food  per  day,  mixing  mash  food  and  wheeling 
it  in  the  yards  all  over  a  ten  acre  field  where  the  ducklings 
are  raised  for  market.  We  ran  thirty-one  incubators,  a 
hatch  coming  off  every  day  for  eight  months.  I  personally 
ran  the  incubators  and  was  manager  of  the  plant.  I  had  to 
oversee  the  whole  business,  and  it  kept  me  on  the  jump  day 
and  night.  So  you  see  it  is  no  small  undertaking  and  only 
strong,  hardy  men  can  stand  it  on  a  large  scale.  If  only  a 
few  hundred  are  raised  any  lady  who  likes  the  business  can 
manage  it,  and  for  that  matter,  only  those  who  like  the 
poultry  business  can  make  it  a  success. 

How  to  Manage  Ducks. 

Above  all  buy  fifty  to  100  ducks  early  hatched,  and  one 
drake  to  five  ducks.  Fifty  may  run  in  one  pen.  Suppose 
you  buy  your  ducks  in  the  fall.  As  soon  as  cold  weather 
comes  on,  start  feeding  them  all  they  want  to  eat  twice  a 
day  bran  and  ground  feed  half  and  half.  Keep  grit  and 
oyster  shells  in  boxes  and  a  pail  of  water  to  each  pen,  every 
time  you  feed.  At  night  see  that  they  have  a  good  bedding 


38  NATURE   AND   ITS- 

of  straw.  You  can  not  raise  ducks  unless  you  keep  them 
dry,  when  they  are  at  rest  at  night.  Don't  close  them  up 
in  an  air  tight  house.  Ducks  can  stand  a  good  deal  of  cold 
weather  as  long  as  they  can  keep  their  feet  warm,  so  you 
must  provide  straw  for  them  to  lay  on. 

About  January  1st  feed  them  cooked  beets  and  turnips,, 
or  a  head  of  cabbage  to  each  pen.  and  mix  in  their  mash 
food  ten  per  cent  of  beet  scraps  at  each  meal.  At  noon  feed 
them  five  quarts  of  corn  to  100  ducks.  Never  feed  them  on 
grain  except  at  noon,  especially  when  they  are  laying.  If 
corn  is  fed  at  noon  the  eggs  will  be  a  rich  yellow  in  yolk 
and  strong.  Beef  cracklings  are  very  good  for  ducks.  This. 
is  the  leavings  after  the  fat  is  tried  out  and  may  be  bought 
from  any  butcher  or  dealer  in  poultry  supplies.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  fat  left  on  it  and  also  the  meat.  It  is  a  great 
egg  food  for  ducks,  and  it  is  also  a  good  fattening  food  for 
young  ducks,  if  soaked  in  hot  water  for  a  few  hours.  Cut 
clover  is  good  for  them.  In  about  fourteen  days  your  ducks 
will  commence  to  lay.  They  will  commence  to  lay  about 
February  1st  if  fed  on  beef  scraps  cooked  and  beef  cra.ck- 
lings.  Beef  scraps  can  be  purchased  of  Darling  &  Co.,  Chi- 
cago. As  soon  as  they  commence  to  lay  see  that  they  have 
egg  boxes  low  down  on  the  ground.  They  will  cover  up 
their  eggs,  and  if  you  have  clean  straw  all  over  the  house, 
your  eggs  will  not  get  dirty  and  will  not  need  washing  be- 
fore putting  them  in  the  incubator.  If  they  are  dirty  you 
cannot  test  them  in  the  incubator.  Washing  eggs  is  no 
small  job.  It  is  not  good  to  wash  duck  eggs,  as  nature  has 
provided  an  oily  coating  on  the  shell  and  if  this  is  washed 
off  you  will  not  get  good  hatches.  While  ducks  are  com- 
mencing to  lay  you  must  provide  a  pond  for  them  or  a  long 
water  through  eight  inches  deep,  two  foot  wide  and  four 
foot  long,  and  so  arranged  that  they  can  get  in  and  out 
easily.  Now  the  reason  for  this  is  to  get  fertile  eggs.  If 
ducks  don't  have  water  to  mate  in  you  will  not  get 
many  fertile  eggs,  as  it  is  natural  for  them  to  mate  in  this- 
way.  They  enjoy  it  and  do  much  better. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  39* 

The  first  two  weeks  the  eggs  are  not  very  fertile,  but  after 
February  15th  the  eggs  will  get  fertile  and  then  you  can 
start  your  machines.  They  will  then  lay  almost  every  day 
until  June.  After  June  let  them  in  a  free  range,  with  only 
one  feeding  a  day.  No  shelter  is  necessary  until  fall  or 
snow  flies. 

Ducks  lay  their  eggs  during  the  night  and  before  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  Never  let  them  out  of  the  house 
before  nine  o'clock  during  the  laying  season. 

In  May  watch  the  drakes,  and  if  they  ride  the  ducks  too 
much  take  one-half  of  the  drakes  away,  and  also  the  ducks, 
which  are  weak  from  the  drakes  riding  them  too  much. 

Don't  feed  oyster  shells  to  laying  ducks  as  the  shells 
make  the  egg  shells  too  hard  for  the  ducklings  to  break 
when  hatching. 

Care  of  Ducklings  From  Egg  to  Market. 

When  ducklings  are  hatching  in  the  incubators,  don't 
open  the  door  at  any  time  until  all  are  out.  If  you  open  the 
door  it  lets  out  the  moisture  and  chills  the  ducklings  while- 
wet  and  hatching.  The  cold  air  striking  them  is  fatal. 
When  they  are  all  hatched  and  dry  open  the  incubator  door 
a  little  to  accustom  them  to  the  outside  air.  This  you  must 
do  gradually.  When  they  are  thirty-six  hours  old  take  therm 
out  in  a  covered  basket  or  box  with  sand  in  the  bottom.. 
Before  putting  them  in  the  brooder  dip  their  bills  in  warm' 
water  for  a  drink.  This  gives  them  a  good  start.  For  their 
first  feed,  give  them  stale  bread  soaked  in  water  with  a  lit- 
tle oatmeal  mixed  in.  Feed  this  for  a  few  days  every  two- 
hours.  Then  feed  one-half  bran,  one-fourth  oatmeal  and 
one-fourth  bread  all  wet  up  in  warm  water.  Always  give- 
them  a  dish  of  water  to  drink  from  while  feeding.  Never- 
feed  ducklings  sour  food  or  cold  water  until  they  are  tern 
days  old. 

When  ten  days  old  feed  one-third  cornmeal,  one-half 
bran,  a  little  middlings  and  second  grade  flour.  Never  feed 
much  cornmeal,  as  it  is  too  fattening,  and 


40  NATURE    AND   ITS 

It  also  causes  bowel  disorders.  Ducklings  cannot  stand 
much  cornmeal  until  they  are  three  weeks  old,  then  feed 
one-half  bran,  one-half  ground  food,  oats,  etc.,  feed  them  a 
little  beef  scraps,  say  ten  per  cent  of  the  feed  and  a  little 
green  food  chopped  up. 

When  four  weeks  old  feed  one-third  cornmeal,  one-half 
bran  middlings,  feed  beef  scraps  three  times  a  day.  Don't 
forget  grit  in  the  boxes. 

When  six  weeks  old  feed  one-half  cornmeal,  one-fourth 
bran  middlings,  green  food,  beef  scraps  four  times  a  day. 
Feed  every  two  hours  or  five  times  a  day,  and  when  you  see 
they  are  off  their  feed,  don't  feed  anything  until  they  get 
hungry. 

When  eight  to  nine  weeks  old  feed  one-fourth  bran, 
three-fourths  ground  food,  of  one-half  corn  and  one-half 
oats  ground  together  and  always  feed  beef  scraps  and  green 
food. 

At  ten  weeks  old  don't  feed  any  green  food,  or  in  other 
words,  don't  feed  any  green  food  ten  days  before  marketing. 
This  green  food  makes  the  duck  look  green  in  color  of  skin, 
and  flabby.  Grain  mash  makes  them  plump  and  hard  in 
flesh.  Beef  makes  them  grow  fast.  Their  meat  is  fine  in 
grain,  white  and  sweet,  when  fed  on  cooked  meat.  Never 
feed  a  duck  raw  meat  nor  mix  grit  in  their  food,  as  this  is 
not  natural.  Any  fowl  knows  when  their  system  wants 
grit.  If  you  mix  grit  in  their  food  the  gizzard  gets  full  of 
it  and  no  food  can  go  in  the  gizzard  to  digest  and  finally 
they  die  of  indigestion.  This  applies  to  poultry  as  well  as 
ducks. 

The  last  few  days,  while  ducks  are  ten  to  eleven  weeks 
old.  just  before  killing,  feed  them  almost  all  cornmeal,  with 
a  little  meat  and  celery  cut  up  fine.  This  gives  them  the 
celery  flavor  and  they  sell  better  for  it. 

When  young  ducklings  cross  their  wings  on  their  backs 
they  are  ready  for  the  market.  They  should  then  weigh 
six  pounds  each  if  they  are  the  China  ducks.  If  they  are  the 
Pekin  ducks  they  should  weigh  five  pounds  at  ten  to  eleven 
weeks  old,  live  weight. 


NATURAL   LAWS. 

If  you  have  a  good  market  at  home  you  need  not  ship 
^them  east.  But  if  you  have  not  it  pays  to  look  up  a  good 
market.  Ducklings  bring-  fifteen  to  twenty-two  cents  per 
pound  from  April  to  May  20th  and  the  best  prices  are  ob- 
tained in  Boston  and  Philadelphia,  often  twenty-eight  cents 
per  pound  in  early  May. 

Dry  and  Scalded  Picking. 

This  depends  for  which  market.  Some  want  dry  picked, 
others  scalded  ducks.  Dry  picking  is  very  hard  and  it  takes 
a  long  time  to  pick  them.  An  expert  can  dry  pick  a  duck  in 
twenty  to  thirty  minutes  and  it  takes  a  good  picker  to  dress 
thirty  ducks  a  day.  On  the  other  hand  an  exper  can  dress 
seventy-five  scalded  ducks  a  day,  so  it  pays  best  to  scald 
them.  Dry  picked  ducks  sell  at  two  cents  per  pound  more 
than  scalded,  but  it  takes  all  the  profits  away,  because  a 
man's  time  is  worth  more  in  picking. 

How  to  Kill  and  Pack. 

Catch  them  by  the  neck  with  a  hook  made  of  wire  on  the 
-end  of  a  pole.  Use  a  sharp  pointed  killing  kife.  Cut  a  cross 
in  the  back  of  the  throat  and  then  turn  up  the  point  and  put 
the  knife  into  the  brain.  This  will  loosen  the  feathers. 
Now  if  you  are  going  to  dry  pick  get  at  it  before  the  duck 
gets  cold.  Begin  with  the  wings  and  tail,  then  the  breast 
and  back.  If  you  are  going  to  scald  them  put  them  in  hot 
water  just  coming  to  a  boil.  Take  them  by  the  necks,  two 
at  a  time  and  dip  in  and  out  for  a  few  minutes  until  all  the 
feathers  are  wet.  By  trying  a  few  feathers  on  the  breast 
you  will  know  when  the  feathers  pull  easily.  Put  them  on  a 
bench  and  pull  out  as  fast  as  possible  without  teaiing  them. 
Use  the  thumb  and  finger  to  pull  feathers  and  by  doing  it 
quickly  and  not  taking  too  many  feathers  at  a  time,  you  can 
dress  one  in  ten  minutes  easily.  When  you  have  all  the  fine 
down  picked  off,  dip  it  in  cold  water,  wash  out  blood  from 


42 


NATURE   AND   IT» 


bill  and  neck  and  then  dip  in  hot  water  just  a  second,  and 
then  in  ice  cold  water  and  keep  there  until  all  the  animal 
heat  is  out  of  them,  say  for  two  hours.  Dipping-  them  in  the 
hot  and  cold  water  makes  them  plump  and  round  looking" 
and  they  will  sell  much  better.  Never  dip  heads  in  hoi 
water,  as  it  makes  the  eyes  look  bad,  as  if  the  duck  had 
died  from  some  disease.  Then  pack  them  on  a  shelf  or  in 
an  ice  box. 

Ship  ducks  at  night  or  early  in  the  morning-  before  the 
sun  is  out,  and  then  the  ice  will  not  melt  so  fast.  Wrap  the 
ducks  in  paper  with  ice  between  them  and  pack  in  boxes  or 
barrels. 

At  What  Age  to  Market  Ducks. 

Some  market  ducks  at  eig-ht  weeks  of  age,  some  at  six 
weeks,  but  the  largest  profit  is  when  the  ducks  are  from  ten 
to  eleven  weeks  old.  If  you  get  only  twelve  cents  a  pound 
for  ducks  in  late  spring  it  pays,  and  if  they  weigh  six  pounds 
each  at  twelve  cents  a  pound  you  get  seventy-two  cents  for 
each  duck,  and  it  only  costs  about  thirty  cents  to  feed  them 
until  eleven  weeks  old. 

Diseases  and  How  to  Prevent  Them. 

If  your  ducklings  are  lame  you  are  feeding  too  much 
grain,  or  are  feeding  too  much  fattening  food.  Always  feed 
a  little  bran,  this  keeps  the  bowels  loose.  Cornmeal  is  dan- 
gerous to  newly  hatched  ducks.  If  your  ducklings  have 
cramps,  the  cause  is  cold  drinking  water,  or  you  are  housing 
them  too  close  in  a  brooder.  They  don't  need  much  heat  to 
keep  warm  when  four  weeks  old.  When  you  lock  them  up 
for  the  night  give  them  all  the  air  you  can  or  they  will 
sweat  and  steam  and  you  are  liable  to  overheat  them.  This 
causes  cramps  when  they  are  sweaty  and  go  out  in  the  cold 
morning  air.  Always  give  them  warm  water  to  drink  until 
they  are  at  least  ten  days  old  and  warm  food,  not  hot,  but 


NATURAL   LAWS.  4£ 

blood  warm.  Ducks  are  very  hardy  but  cannot  stand  get- 
ting wet  while  they  are  very  young.  A  wet  duck  before 
three  weeks  of  age  is  generally  a  dead  duck,  but  when  their 
feathers  are  out  they  like  the  rain  and  wet. 

Ducks  for  Market. 

Never  let  young  ducks  go  in  a  pond  if  you  are  going  to* 
market  them.  They  fatten  better  and  grow  quicker  without 
water,  but  you  must  have  a  pail  so  that  they  can  put  their 
entire  heads  in  water  when  they  are  five  weeks  old.  This  i& 
to  clean  their  eyes  and  bills. 

Never  keep  feed  in  troughs  or   it    will   sour.     Clean   out- . 
the  troughs  every  day   in   warm    weather,     Sour  food   will 
kill  a  duckling. 

Keep  forty  ducklings  in  one  pen,  say  10x40  or  larger, 
and  a  shed  to  go  under  for  shade.  Keep  a  dry  place  for  them 
at  night.  Pekin  ducks  lay  about  100  eggs  per  season  and  a 
White  China  about  140  per  season.  The  eggs  hatch  about 
the  same  as  hens  eggs,  as  regards  fertility,  but  it  takes- 
twenty-eight  days  to  hatch  them. 

Breeding  ducks  should  be  let  out  every  day  in  the  year 
and  their  houses  should  be  well  aired.  They  should  not  be 
too  closely  housed.  Lots  of  air  means  success  in  this  busi- 
ness, and  foul  air  and  wet  houses  means  failure.  Try  to 
keep  the  yards  and  houses  ciean.  Clean  out  at  least  once 
every  week  and  throw  air  slacked  lime  all  over  the  yards 
and  houses. 

Sore  eyes  in  ducklings  is  caused  from  filth,  and  want  of 
grit,  and  proper  watering  dishes.  The  dishes  must  be  deep 
so  they  can  stick  their  heads  in  the  pail  over  their  eyes. 

All  told,  keep  ducklings  dry,  feed  green  food,  lots  of  air 
and  shade.  Don't  let  them  paddle  in  the  water  all  day  while 
young.  Not  too  much  cornmeal  while  young,  no  sour  foodr 
and  you  will  have  solved  the  problem. 

Be  careful  in  salting  foods.  Use  about  one  handful  of 
salt  to  a  200  pound  mash,  and  only  salt  once  a  week. 


44  NATURE    AND   ITS 

Never  have  different  ages  among"  your  ducks,  have  them 
all  of  a  size  and  if  some  are  smaller  put  them  with  a  smaller 
lot.  Then  they  will  get  a  fair  show  for  their  living. 

Don't  feed  much  meat  to  ducklings  when  very  young, 
and  never  feed  grain.  Never  give  them  milk  to  drink  as  it 
makes  the  down  come  out. 

Always  water  while  feeding  mash  or  they  will  die.  they 
must  have  water  to  clean  their  bills  out  and  their  nostrils 
for  air. 

When  ducklings  are  raised  for  breeders  don't  force  them. 
They  don't  need  feeding  five  times  a  day.  Never  let  them 
in  the  water  to  swim.  They  lose  their  weight  and  will  not 
fatten.  Also  keep  them  yarded.  If  you  are  raising  them 
for  breeders,  let  them  in  the  water  when  they  are  eight 
weeks  old.  They  enjoy  it  and  do  well  on  free  range  and 
find  lots  to  eat  in  the  way  of  bugs,  etc.  If  these  directions 
are  followed  you  will  make  it  pay  better  than  corn  or  hogs. 

There  is  twice  the  money  in  ducks  that  there  is  in  hogs. 
Hogs  sell  at  $3  per  100  pounds  and  ducks  will  bring  $10  per 
100  pounds  any  time  in  the  year  and  sometimes  will  bring 
.$25,  so  you  see  the  profits  are  good  in  ducks. 


GEESE. 

There  are  half  a  dozen  breeds  of  geese,  but  the  best 
market  geese,  and  the  hardiest,  are  the  Toulouse  and  the 
Brown  China. 

The  Toulouse  goose  lays  forty  eggs  per  year.  The 
Brown  China  lays  sixty  to  seventy  per  year.  The  weight  of 
rgoose  and  gander  when  one  year  old  is  about  twenty  pounds 
-each  and  their  meat  is  coarse  and  flabby. 

Brown  China  geese  are  the  most  beautiful  geese  one  can 
imagine.  They  look  like  swans  and  are  like  soldiers  when 
out  of  the  water,  their  heads  up  and  very  proud.  They  are 
very  gentle  and  the  young  are  hardy. 


NATUKAL   LAWS.  45- 

A  goslin  hatched  is  a  goslin  raised.  This  tells  how 
hardy  they  are.  Their  meat  is  the  best,  fine  grain  and  flavor 
and  sweet  and  juicy.  Their  feathers  are  high  priced  and 
sell  for  seventy-five  to  $1  per  pound. 

Management  of  Geese. 

Greese  need  free  range  and  water  to  do  well.  They  eat 
grass  like  a  cow,  also  hay  in  the  winter  and  they  like  to  eat 
rotten  stumps,  roots,  etc.  Geese  cannot  be  raised  in  a  large 
number,  twenty-five  will  want  an  acre  and  a  pond.  The 
China  geese  are  not  roamers.  They  will  stay  around  the 
house  and  should  have  a  shed  out  near  the  pasture  so  they 
will  not  hang  around  the  dwelling  house. 

There  are  lots  of  farms  where  nothing  can  be  raised,  at 
least  not  on  parts  of  such  as  swamps  or  woody  land. 
This  is  an  excellent  place  for  geese.  Many  farmers  make  it 
a  business  and  as  they  eat  but  little  grain  and  mash  it  pays 
better  than  any  other  stock,  considering  the  land  they  run 
in.  Any  old  shed  will  do  for  shelter.  They  live  to  be  fifty 
years  old  and  lay  and  hatch  as  long  as  they  live.  Ganders 
when  three  years  old  should  not  be  kept  for  breeding,  the 
young  gander  is  best.  The  young  gander  is  more  active  and 
the  eggs  are  more  fertile.  The  goose  eggs  will  not  be  very 
fertile  until  three  years  old.  The  breeding  season  com. 
mences  about  February.  The  goose  generally  lays  three  or 
four  litters  of  eggs,  fifteen  to  twenty  at  each  litter.  When 
the  goose  lays  her  Erst  litter  and  wants  to  set  take  the  eggs 
away  and  set  them  under  hens.  Always  leave  one  egg  in 
the  nest  or  she  will  look  for  another  nest.  A  goose  always 
covers  up  her  nest.  When  she  lays  her  last  batch,  let  her 
set  on  the  eggs  and  hatch  her  own  young.  The  young  gos- 
lins  live  on  grass  the  first  week.  If  you  feed  them  anything 
give  them  mash  or  bread,  milk  curd,  etc.,  but  never  try  to 
yard  them.  This  is  not  their  nature  and  they  will  die  if  you 
try  it.  They  like  green  food  of  all  kind. 

The  young  goslins  should  be  fed  on  mash  food,  beef 
scraps,  cooked  turnips,  potatoes,  whole  corn  and  oats. 


46  ITATUBE   AND   ITS 


Be  Gentle  with  Geese. 

Don't  have  a  goose  fat  when  the  laying-  season  com- 
mences, but  feed  them  well  while  they  are  laying. 

To  fatten  young  geese  for  market,  fatten  them  only 
twelve  days.  Put  them  in  a  pen  and  feed  three  times  a  day 
cornmeal  and  beef  scraps  and  a  little  bran.  Keep  them 
quiet  while  fattening  and  don't  scare  them.  Don't  irritate 
them  in  the  least  or  they  will  not  fatten.  At  ten  weeks  of 
age  they  are  ready  for  the  market,  just  when  the  wings 
reach  the  tail.  Pick  them  dry,  and  it  should  be  done  before 
<jold  weather  comes  in  October  or  before,  as  in  cold  weather 
the  feathers  are  hard  to  pick. 

If  you  want  to  pick  them  alive  do  so  just  before  cold 
weather  comes,  and  never  pick  a  goose  unless  the  ends  of 
the  feathers  or  quill  is  dry  so  no  meat  or  blood  is  on  the  end 
of  quill.  In  the  spring  and  early  fall  is  the  best  time  to  pick 
them.  The  best  results  are  gotten  when  crossed,  say  a 
Toulouse  on  a  China,  or  Embden  goose,  or  an  Embden  on  a 
China.  They  mature  quicker  and  weigh  much  more.  Green 
young  geese  sell  best  when  the  Jews  have  their  holy  days. 
A  goslin  will  frequently  bring  fifteen  cents  per  pound  and  a 
goslin  weighs  twelve  to  fifteen  pounds  when  fifteen  weeks 
old. 


TURKEYS. 


Here  is  where  nature  must  be  followed  to  be  successful. 
They  are  easy  to  raise  if  you  know  how,  and  if  you  don't 
know  how  you  will  never  make  it  pay.  It  is  a  password 
among  farmers  that  the  turkey  is  hard  to  raise,  they  say 
that  if  they  get  wet  they  die,  they  get  lousy,  their  wings 
get  heavy,  they  get  weak,  fall  over  and  die,  or  they  get  loose 
yellow  droppings  and  die. 


NATURAL   LAWS  47 

This  is  so,  but  if  they  would  stop  to  think  and  study 
their  natural  habits  they  would  be  successful.  I  lost  hun- 
dreds of  turkeys  before  I  studied  nature  and  understood  its 
natural  laws. 

I  have  seen  turkeys  in  their  wild  state  in  the  southwest, 
and  watched  them,  their  habits  and  nature,  and  noticed  a 
great  many  things,  how  to  feed,  where  they  roost  and  a  hun- 
dred other  important  points. 

A  turkey  is  a  wild  fowl  which  has  been  domesticated  and 
improved  in  size  and  color.  A  turkey  above  all  will  not  bear 
confinement,  yarding  or  handling  at  any  age,  but  especially 
the  young. 

How  to  Start. 

Above  all  start  with  old  stock.  They  must  be  three 
years  old,  at  least  the  hens.  Never  try  to  raise  turkeys 
from  young,  hens,  they  are  poor  mothers  and  their  egg  are 
not  very  fertile.  The  young  are  weakly  and  you  positively 
must  not  fence  them  or  keep  them  around  the  dwelling 
house.  Build  a  high  shed  for  them,  say  sixteen  foot  high, 
and  it  depends  how  many  you  are  going  to  raise  as  to  the 
size  of  the  house.  The  best  place  for  turkeys  is  in  a  timber 
country.  Have  the  house  away  from  all  other  poultry. 
There  are  a  dozen  reasons  for  this.  They  will  not  do  well 
among  poultry,  and  they  overeat  themselves  with  grain.  It 
is  not  natural  for  them.  They  in  their  wild  state  look  for 
their  food  and  it  is  not  thrown  to  them.  There  never  was  a 
sick  wild  turkey,  nor  a  wild  bird.  They  are  never  overfed. 
Nature  provides  bugs,  seeds,  etc.,  and  they  don't  have  to 
stay  in  poorly  ventilated  houses  with  a  bad  smell  of  manure. 
They  will  do  best  on  trees  the  year  around.  If  you  can 
make  them  go  in  the  sheds  or  a  house  sixteen  foot  high  with 
poles  up  high,  they  will  like  this  better  than  if  in  a  low 
house.  In  the  spring  let  them  go  in  groups  of  say  ten  to 
twelve  in  a  bunch,  and  have  a  house  for  each  bunch.  Make 
the  houses  say  one-fourth  mile  apart,  or  the  gobblers  will 
fight  and  kill  each  other.  Get  them  used  to  their  own  sheds 


48  NATURE    AND   IT& 

Don't  bother  or  scare  them  in  any  way.  When  you  feed  the 
old  stock  do  so  near  their  sheds  at  night.  When  they  are 
laying1  don't  go  near  their  nests  and  let  them  hatch  their 
own  young.  When  the  poults  are  hatched  don't  handle 
them  at  all. 

They  positively  cannot  bear  handling,  and  the  old  hen 
can  do  more  for  the  poults  than  the  best  poultryman  on 
earth.  She  will  see  that  they  do  not  get  wet  or  overfed  and 
if  you  keep  away  she  will  raise  all  of  them.  I  have  done 
this  for  eight  years.  I  tried  every  way  to  raise  them  at 
home,  but  one  hen  in  the  wild  state  could  raise  more  than  I 
could  with  half  a  dozen  hens,  with  day  and  night  care. 

About  once  a  day  I  go  out  and  feed  them  milk  curd  and 
black  pepper  and  onions  cut  up  fine.  Pepper  and  onions  are 
life  savers  for  turkeys.  They  live  on  grasshoppers,  bugs 
and  the  hen  herself  will  not  go  hungry.  But  just  as  soon  as 
you  feed  corn  and  grain  to  turkeys  they  get  too  fat  and  get 
indigestion  and  yellow  droppings,  loose  and  sulphur  looking 
stuff.  This  is  not  cholera  but  indigestion,  too  much  grain, 
and  if  you  feed  the  young  and  catch  them  every  day  or  drive 
them  in  when  a  storm  comes  up  they  will  get  sick  in  spite  of 
you.  They  are  very  timid  and  it  worries  them  to  death  to 
be  chased  or  driven.  The  lice  will  not  bother  them  if  you 
let  them  go  wild  and  help  themselves.  If  you  want  to  you 
can  use  gasoline  on  both  the  old  and  the  young  turkeys,  if 
you  are  sure  they  have  lice.  Spray  it  on  them  and  it  will 
not  do  them  the  least  harm.  Provide  a  dust  box  for  them  of 
wood  ashes  and  sulphur  mixed,  and  have  the  box  covered  so 
that  the  rain  will  not  wet  the  dust.  A  shed  for  this  would 
be  a  good  thing,  so  arranged  that  the  sun  could  shine  in  the 
box  and  yet  keep  the  rain  off.  Make  the  roof  about  three 
feet  above  the  box,  and  about  twice  the  size  of  the  box. 

In  the  fall  about  November  1st  pull  out  or  cut  their 
wing  feathers.  Drive  the  turkeys  in  a  shed  or  yard  and 
feed  them  on  boiled  corn  and  beans  for  ten  days  and  then 
get  them  in  the  market  five  or  six  days  before  Thanksgiving 
Day.  The  Mammoth  Bronze  turkeys  ought  to  weigh  fifteen 
to  twenty  pounds  each,  and  this  at  nine  to  ten  cents  per 


NATURAL   LAWS. 

pound  will  make  each  turkey  bring  $1. 50  to  $2  each,  a  good 
profit,  with  no  cost  and  no  time  to  speak  of.  Turkeys  pay 
better  than  any  other  thing  on  the  farm  considering  time 
and  cost. 

In  California  turkeys  are  herded  like  sheep.  I  have  seen 
thousands  of  them  herded  by  boys.  At  night  they  are 
driven  into  a  large  twenty-five  acre  yard  in  the  center  of 
which  are  high  trees  with  poles  laying  from  one  tree  to  the 
other.  They  roost  on  these  and  no  coyotes  or  wolves  or 
wild  cats  can  get  at  them.  They  are  shipped  east  in  carload 
lots,  and  sell  at  $1.25  each  on  foot,  when  fall  comes.  A 
small  fortune  is  made,  as  they  are  seldom  fed  except  for  the- 
market  in  the  fall. 


BELGIAN  HHRES. 


Nature  must  be  followed  in  these  to  be  successful. 
Have  you  not  noticed  that  if  you  capture  a  wild  bird  or  a 
cotton  tail  rabbit  that  they  will  die  if  you  try  to  keep  them 
in  a  cage?  To  prevent  this  they  must  be  given  their  liberty .. 
You  can  keep  them  if  you  make  a  fence  tight  all  over  and 
large  enough,  say  one  acre  for  fifty  or  so  and  have  it  away 
from  the  house  and  as  near  wild  as  you  can  get  it,  then  you 
will  be  successful  in  raising  all. 

Belgian  Hares  can  and  are  raised  in  small  yards.  In 
fact,  most  all  have  no  yards  at  all,  only  small  boxes,  2x3 
feet,  but  they  have  to  be  very  careful,  clean  out  every  day 
and  pen  each  separate.  The  bucks  must  be  kept  separate 
from  the  does,  or  they  will  kill  the  young  and  fight  with 
the  other  bucks.  This  is  a  good  deal  of  work  and  expense 
to  keep  each  separate  and  takes  a  great  many  dishes,  and 
many  gates  to  open  to  clean  each  pen.  It  is  impossible  to 
keep  them  healthy  and  have  them  do  well  if  they  are  con* 
fined  without  outdoor  air  and  exercise. 


50  NATURE    AND   ITS 

Belgian  Hares  for  Market  and  Breeding. 

I  always  had  success  and  no  diseases.  I  kept  them  in  a 
large  yard  so  no  dog's  could  get  at  them  and  a  fence  high 
enough.  A  rabbit  must  be  on  a  free  range  so  to  speak,  or  a 
large  yard  to  run  in  and  a  lot  of  boxes  in  a  long  shed  partly 
underground,  high  and  dry,  .with  a  small  opening  in  the  box 
about  6x6  inches.  When  the  doe  has  her  young  she  closes 
the  hole  up  tight  so  no  buck  can  get  at  the  young  and  he 
will  not  take  the  trouble  to  open  the  holes.  When  you  feed 
them  you  can  do  it  on  a  large  scale,  also  watering  them  and 
no  doors  or  gates  to  open. 

A  woody  underbrush  is  an  excellent  place  to  raise  hares 
in.  They  eat  bark,  grass,  clover  and  brush,  and  they  love 
hazel  brush.  Have  a  load  of  straw  in  the  yard  and  a  lot  of 
little  houses  all  over  the  yard,  and  in  each  of  these  little 
houses  have  a  bench  fourteen  inches  high  for  the  doe  to  go 
up  on  so  the  young  cannot  bother  her  when  she  is  at  rest. 
Have  a  box  in  the  ground,  say  three  feet  long  12x12  inches 
and  a  hole  in  one  end  for  the  doe  to  go  in,  and  on  the  other 
end  a  pipe  three  foot  long  attached  to  the  box  for  air  for  the 
young.  This  pipe  should  go  about  a  foot  above  the  top  of 
the  ground.  When  she  closes  up  the  hole  the  young  will 
have  air  through  this  pipe. 

A  good  plan  is  to  change  bucks  every  week  and  keep  the 
ones  you  have  had  in  the  yard  in  a  large  room  or  in  separate 
boxes  and  feed  them  on  oats,  hay  and  water.  This  will 
give  them  a  rest  and  they  will  not  overdo  themselves.  The 
bucks  get  very  poor  if  they  have  too  many  does  to  care  for 
in  breeding. 

Feeding  the  Hares. 

Hay,  oats,  corn  and  clover.  Hay  is  the  best  food,  and 
onions  and  cabbage.  Not  too  much  green  food  should  be 
given  them  and  all  the  water  they  want.  Onions  are  the 
best  medicine  for  colds  in  hares  and  is  good  for  indigestion. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  51 

Don't  overfeed  them,  keep  them  a  little  hungry  at  all  times. 
A  rabbit  in  the  wild  state  gets  its  feed  little  by  little  and  it 
takes  them  all  night  to  get  enough  to  eat.  You  never  saw  a 
sick  wild  rabbit,  because  they  have  liberty  and  never  get  too 
much  to  eat,  they  have  to  hunt  for  it.  A  good  plan  is  to 
have  a  space  yarded  separate  with  a  roof  over  this  yard  and 
a  foot  of  straw  in  the  yard.  Throw  oats,  corn  and  carrots 
in  the  straw,  then  they  have  to  hunt  for  their  feed,  the  same 
as  the  wild  rabbits  do  and  they  have  to  work  for  all  they 
get  and  dig  in  the  straw  for  their  feed.  They  will  not  over- 
feed then. 

A  Belgian  Hare  is  the  finest  eating,  there  is  no  better 
meat.  One  pair  will  raise  at  least  seventy-five  young  in  a 
year,  and  the  young  when  six  months  old  commence  to  breed, 
so  you  see  one  pair  will  easily  raise  150  hares  in  one  season. 
They  commence  to  breed  in  March  and  keep  it  up  until 
October  and  November.  The  best  way  is  to  let  them  breed 
only  six  litters  and  mark  the  bucks  so  that  you  will  not  in- 
breed.  Use  different  bucks  every  year  or  you  will  be  sorry. 

Their  pelts  sell  for  thirty  to  forty  cents  each.  All  kinds 
of  imitation  furs  are  made  from  it.  The  hide  is  tough,  and  is 
toughest  hide  in  the  rabbit  family.  Rugs  are  sometimes 
made  from  the  pelts,  but  they  are  very  expensive  and  sell 
for  a  high  price.  Fur  hats  are  made  from  them  and  many 
other  things. 

The  business  will  never  be  overdone.  It  will  be  fifteen 
years  before  this  country  will  have  all  the  breeders  they 
want,  to  say  nothing  about  them  for  the  market.  You  can- 
not buy  Belgian  Hares  in  the  market  now,  and  you  will  not 
be  able  to  do  so  for  several  years  to  come.  They  are  too  ex- 
pensive to  be  sold  for  food  at  present,  as  they  are  all  being 
used  for  breeding,  and  until  they  are  for  sale  in  the  markets 
how  can  they  overrun  the  market.  There  are  more  cotton 
tail  rabbits  and  jack  rabbits  in  America  than  there  ever  will 
be  Belgian  Hares  and  they  will  never  sell  for  five  cents  like 
the  cotton  tails. 

The  Belgian  Hares  weigh  from  eight  to  fourteen  pounds 
according  to  age.  One  year  old  they  weigh  eight  pounds. 


52  NATURE   AXD   ITS 

I  have  had  bucks  that  weighed  fourteen  pounds  each,  and 
have  raised  hares  ever  since  I  was  a  boy.  My  nick  name 
was  *'  Rabbits  "  at  one  time.  I  could  sell  them  at  $1  each  at 
the  market  and  the  Sprague  Commission  Co.,  will  buy  all 
you  send  them  at  SI  each,  or  ten  cents  per  pound.  But  they 
cannot  get  any,  although  they  have  a  demand  for  them  so 
Mr.  Sprague  told  me  personally. 

I  can  sell  all  I  want  for  breeding  purposes  at  $5.00  per 
pair,  and  up  to  $25.00  per  pair.  If  they  are  standard  bred, 
have  four  red  feet,  good  in  color  and  shape  ticking,  length 
of  body,  and  golden  under  color,  they  sell  from  $25.00  to 
8100.00  each. 

But  all  in  all  the  market  will  pay,  and  pay  well;  and  if 
you  want  to  go  in  on  a  small  scale,  try  them.  A  small  yard 
or  house  will  do,  but  on  a  large  scale,  for  market  and  breed- 
ers, it  will  not.  unless  you  provide  a  large  yard  and  follow 
nature. 

It  costs  three  cents  per  pound  to  feed  hares,  and  you  sell 
them  for  the  market  at  the  weight  of  eight  pounds  at  ten 
cents  per  pound.  You  get  eighty  cents  for  each  hare,  and  it 
costs  you  twenty-four  cents  for  feed.  One  hare  will  net  you 
fifty-six  cents,  and  one  pair  of  hares  will  raise  seventy-five 
in  one  year;  so  you  see  it  pays.  One  pair  can  make  you 
easily  fifty  dollars  per  year,  figuring  all  cost  and  feed,  etc. 

As  the  young  will  start  breeding  when  they  are  six 
months  old,  one  pair  will  really  raise  one  hundred  and  fifty 
hares,  if  you  understand  your  business.  It  certainly  can  be 
done. 

It  is  no  fad.  It  is  an  industry.  They  will  be  raised  just 
like  poultry,  hogs  and  cattle  for  one  hundred  years  to  come. 

The  young  should  be  weaned  when  four  to  six  weeks 
old,  and  fed  very  light,  and  not  very  much  green  food. 

Never  handle  them  by  the  ears.  Take  them  by  the  neck 
or  just  over  the  shoulders.  They  are  too  heavy  to  be  hand- 
by  the  ears,  and  it  makes  the  ears  lop  when  handled  in 
that  manner. 

They  are  a  fine  looking  animal,  of  a  golden  red  looking 
color,  with  black  tips  on  their  hair,  called  ticking. 


JS  ATUEAL   LAWS.  53 

Their  meat  is  something  delicious.  It  is  the  best  meat 
one  can  eat. 

A  hog  is  a  slow,  sluggish  animal,  and  if  you  eat  their 
meat  you  derive  no  benefit  from  it,  because  there  is  no 
nutriment  and  no  muscle  forming  or  strengthening  meat 
about  a  hog.  On  the  other  hand,  a  rabbit,  or  hare,  fed  en 
grain,  is  an  active  animal,  and  is  all  muscle  and  meat.  They 
are  not  fat,  the  meat  is  of  a  fine,  sweet  grain,  with  small 
bones.  The  meat  is  very  strengthening  to  sick  people. 

Hares  live  to  be  five  to  eight  years  old  and  they  breed 
every  year.  Bucks  should  not  be  over  two  years  old,  but 
the  does  should  be  kept,  as  they  are  valuable  animals.  Feed 
dry  foods  as  much  as  possible,  and  be  careful  about  feeding 
the  young  green  food.  If  you  do  they  are  apt  to  get  pot- 
bellied and  the  snuffles,  and  die.  Dry  food  and  water,  and 
once  a  week  cabbage  and  carrots,  but  not  too  much  at  a 
time.  Don't  bother  the  nest;  let  them  alone;  the  doe  will 
do  what  is  right,  and  will  take  care  of  the  young  better  than 
the  manager  can.  Dry  bread  and  milk  is  good  for  the  doe 
while  she  has  her  young,  once  a  day,  and  other  grain  extra. 

Pedigreed  Hares  Pay. 

Every  one  wants  pedigreed  stock.  If  you  want  to  sell 
stock  at  a  high  price,  don't  be  afraid  to  buy  stock  for  breed- 
ers at  810.00  to  $50.00  per  pair,  with  a  good  pedigree  behind 
them.  Four  red  feet,  a  golden  red  collar,  long  in  shape,  arch 
back,  well  laced,  etc. 

If  I  had  one  thousand  pedigreed  hares,  I  could  sell  them 
at  85.00  each  in  one  week.  It  pays  to  get  good  stock;  and 
don't  be  afraid  of  overdoing  the  hare  business.  They  have 
bred  Belgian  Hares  for  thirty  years,  and  stock  still  sells  at 
4100  to  $500  each. 


54  NATURE   AND   ITS 

Diseases  and  How  to  Prevent. 

Nature  Followed  and  No  Drugs  Used. 

Causes  of  failure  in  the  poultry  business  are  diseases, 
and  chicks  dying-  after  they  are  hatched.  Ninety-nine  out 
of  every  hundred  read  up  on  poultry,  and  feed  them  all 
kinds  of  powders  and  medicine,  and  kill  them  by  filling-  them 
with  all  kinds  of  stuff.  Nature  provides  bugs  and  seeds 
of  all  kinds  but  no  medicines  or  powders.  Wild  birds  never 
have  diseases,  and  they  raise  all  their  young-  right  out  in  the 
open  air  in  all  kinds  of  weather.  But  just  as  soon  as  you. 
cage  up  a  wild  bird,  it  don't  make  much  difference  what  it 
is,  sooner  or  later  it  will  get  sick  and  die,  just  as  sure  as 
the  sun  shines.  Now  it  ought  not  to  die,  because  it  is 
where  it  is  dry  and  warm,  fed  regularly,  and  has  the  best  of 
everything.  But  the  best  of  care  will  not  make  the  bird 
live.  Why?  Because  the  bird  is  a  prisoner,  has  no  liberty,, 
is  used  to  free  range,  and  the  regular  food  given  is  too  high 
for  it,  No  exercise,  nor  a  fresh,  pure  air,  as  if  out  and  free, 
and  other  things  to  which  it  is  accustomed. 

Expert  book  writers  and  expert  poultry  men  say  that  the 
hen  that  is  on  free  range  gets  meat  all  day  long,  such  as  bugs 
grasshoppers,  worms,  etc.,  and  we  must  feed  our  poultry 
meat  from  the  butcher  shop  to  poultry  that  are  yarded  up, 
because  they  cannot  get  worms,  etc.  Now  they  feed  meat, 
all  that  they  can  eat,  and  a  dozen  other  things,  to  make  the 
hens  lay.  If  this  is  done  in  the  winter  time  they  will  get 
roup  and  distemper,  just  as  sure  as  you  feed  meat  and  fresh 
bone  in  any  quantity.  In  summer  if  fed  on  meat  they  will 
get  liver  troubles  and  go  light,  and  other  diseases  of  the 
same  nature. 

Now,  why  is  it  they  get  sick,  if  fed  on  meat?  Just  this, 
it  is  too  rich  for  them.  You  must  stop  to  think  that  worms, 
bugs,  etc.,  are  about  ninety  per  cent  water  and  it  is  not  a 
rich  food.  It  makes  chicks  grow  and  hens  lay,  but  the  food 
is  not  rich  in  nutriment  and  protein. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  55 

Oil  the  other  hand,  beef  or  any  kind  of  meat  is  rich  pro- 
tein or  nutriment,  over  seventy  per  cent  and  the  rest  water. 
It  also  causes  indigestion  as  the  meat  is  hard  to  digest,  not 
being"  cooked.  The  gizzard  cannot  grind  meat,  it  grinds 
grain,  but  this  meat  gets  to  the  gizzard  in  chunks  and  stops 
up  the  opening  of  the  gizzard  at  times  and  what  food  is 
eaten  after  the  meal  stays  in  the  stomach,  causing  a  disor- 
der, distemper  and  indigestion.  It  causes  a  high  fever  and 
affects  the  liver  and  bowels.  If  you  want  to  kill  a  dog  just 
feed  him  all  the  raw  meat  he  wants.  You  will  soon  notice 
a  froth  on  the  mouth,  he  will  get  stiff  and  a  regular  distem- 
per set  in,  and  if  not  attended  to  he  will  die. 

It  is  the  same  with  fowls,  the  first  visible  effect  of  rich 
highly  fed  poultry  is  a  high  fever,  heavy  breathing,  water 
and  froth  in  eyes,  swollen  eyes  and  head,  then  canker  in 
mouth,  then  bad  breath,  worse  than  a  rotten  egg.  This  is 
roup,  and  if  one  has  it  they  all  get  it  and  the  whole  lot  will 
die.  It  is  contagious.  No  medicine  on  earth  will  cure  roup. 
The  very  best  thing  to  do  is  to  not  feed  anything  for  a  week. 
Give  them  water.  This  will  stop  the  fever.  Hunger  is  the 
best  cure  for  almost  any  disease.  Not  only  that,  but  a  sick 
bird  or  person  has  no  desire  to  eat.  and  if  forced  to  eat 
while  sick  it  is  very  dangerous. 

Mash  food  also  causes  roup.  Mash  fed  to  poultry  over- 
loads their  whole  system,  causes  disorders  and  indigestion, 
fever,  and  if  in  winter  the  fever  brings  on  a  cold,  then  roup 
gets  into  the  flock. 

To  prevent  roup,  feed  a  variety  of  grain,  and  give  them 
free  range.  Give  them  lots  of  outdoor  exercise  and  sun. 
Keep  the  house  clean  and  open  every  day  for  air.  Throw 
the  grain  in  straw  and  keep  them  scratching. 

To  prevent  frost  on  the  walls  of  poultry  houses  air  it 
well  and  don't  close  it  up  tight. 

Birds  in  the  air  never  have  roup  or  colds.  They  are  not 
housed  nor  fed  on  high  rich  foods  and  are  out  in  cold,  rain 
and  snow. 

Above  all,  don't  overcrowd  the  house  with  hens  and 
don't  keep  1,000  in  a  house,  even  if  it  is  1,000  feet  long  and 


•00  NATURE    AND    ITS 

fifty  feet  wide,  because  it  canses  dampness  and  frosty  walls, 
from  the  moisture  of  their  breath  and  from  the  manure. 

If  a  hen  is  out  doors  and  roosts  on  trees  the  year  round 
she  is  the  healthiest  hen  of  the  bunch.  She  does  not  breathe 
and  re-breath  in  the  same  foul  air  over  and  over  again,  and 
is  not  crowded  on  the  roosts.  It  is  natural  for  them  to  roost 
on  trees.  A  chicken  was  originally  a  wild  jungle  fowl  and 
wants  free  range  and  the  sun  of  the  ranch  at  all  times. 

How  to  Make  Them  Lay  in  Winter  and  Still  Have  Natural  Ways. 

Now  to  come  as  near  to  nature  as  possible  and  make 
them  lay  in  winter,  have  a  shed  open  to  the  south  for  them 
to  scratch  in  and  throw  a  load  of  horse  manure  near  the 
house.  You  will  see  how  they  will  scratch  and  dig  for  the 
•oats,  etc.,  in  the  manure.  It  also  keeps  their  feet  warm. 
One  load  of  manure  will  heat  up  and  keep  warm  for  weeks. 
Then  give  in  straw;  feed  green  cabbage  and  fresh  cracked 
bone  cut  with  a  bone  cutter.  Now  in  feeding  bone,  feed 
only  twice  a  week,  say  one  pound  to  fifty  hens  at  each  feed. 

A  dust  box  must  be  in  the  house  near  the  window.  Put 
-coal  ashes  in  the  box  and  you  will  get  eggs  in  a  way  that 
will  surprise  you,  if  they  are  early  hatched  pullets.  Don't 
fence  them  in  at  all. 

Cholera.. ..The  Cause. 

This  disease  is  feared  among  all  farmers  and  poultrymen 
There  is  net  much  cholera  in  poultry  nowadays.  But  it  was 
;all  the  go  some  years  ago.  They  don't  keep  the  hens  fat 
like  they  then  did,  and  they  don't  feed  them  three  times  a 
-day.  In  summer  don't  feed  hens  at  all.  Corn  is  very  heat- 
ing and  fattening.  The  two  causes  for  hens  getting  cholera 
is  that  the  fat  hen  cannot  stand  the  heat,  and  corn  burns 
them  up  inside,  cooks  and  boils  the  food  in  their  stomachs, 
•dysentery,  yellow,  watery  droppings,  which  look  as  if  mixed 
with  sulphur,  getting  green  after  the  bird  has  been  sick  a 


WORKING  HOMER  PIGEONS. 


CHINESE  GEESE. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  57 

few  days.  In  summer,  say  July,  stop  feeding-  corn  and  keep 
them  thin.  Give  them  oats  and  wheat  and  always  keep  lime 
in  the  water.  Give  them  all  the  grit  they  want  and  let 
them  roost  out  doors.  A  lot  of  fowls  in  a  small  house  in 
summer  makes  it  very  hot  for  them  at  night. 

If  you  have  some  sick  with  cholera,  give  them  a  mash 
with  strong  red  pepper  in  it  twice  a  day  for  a  few  days,  and 
put  iron  and  alum  in  the  water. 

Fowls  should  not  be  fed  much  in  the  summer,  lots  of 
range  and  green  food  and  water,  fresh  and  clean  kept  in  a 
cool  place  will  prevent  cholera  every  time.  The  wild  birds 
do  not  have  cholera  because  they  do  not  get  too  much  corn, 
nor  are  they  fed  too  high.  They  have  to  look  for  their  food 
and  thus  are  never  overfed.  A  hen  will  never  starve  in  sum- 
mer on  a  farm;  she  finds  all  kinds  of  feed  and  fifty  hens* on 
a  farm  about  a  house  need  no  food  given  to  them  at  all,  but 
100  or  1,000  hens  need  some,  because  there  is  not  enough  for 
them  all.  But  if  they  are  out  on  the  colony  plan,  a  house 
every  100  yards  all  over  the  farm  they  will  be  spread  all  over 
the  farm  and  will  not  run  over  the  same  ground  and  thereby 
each  getting  their  share. 

Chicken  Pox. 

This  is  caused  by  overcrowding  in  one  house,  the  bad 
air  and  foul  heat  in  a  close  house.  Don't  let  a  lot  of 
young  chickens  go  in  one  house.  Divide  them  off  and  have 
a  coop  with  roosts  in  a  house  say  4x4  feet,  4  feet  high,  and 
keep  thirty  or  forty  in  a  house  like  this,  with  a  front  cov- 
ered with  poultry  wire.  Close  it  up  every  night  to  keep  out 
night  prowlers,  such  as  skunks,  minks,  cats,  dogs,  etc. 

Scabby  Legs  in  Poultry. 

Cause:  Dirty,  filthy  houses  and  roosting  places.  Lice 
get  under  the  scales  and  play  havoc  with  the  legs.  Lard  and 
sulphur  mixed  and  rubbed  on  thickly,  will  be  of  great  help 


58  NATURE   AND   ITS 

and  make  the  leg's  nice  and  smooth.  This  should  be  rubbed 
on  three  or  four  times.  Keep  the  roosts  well  oiled  with 
kerosene  to  keep  off  the  lice.  You  will  find  millions  under 
the  roost  poles. 

Egg  Eaters. 

Nests  should  be  in  a  dark  place  and  so  low  that  the  hens 
cannot  stand  up  in  the  nest  and  pick  at  the  eggs.  Keeping 
the  hens  scratching1  in  straw  will  prevent  egg  eating.  Close 
confinement  causes  this  trouble. 

Feather  Eating. 

.  This  is  also  caused  by  close  confinement,  and  being 
penned  in  a  yard  with  nothing  to  do.  Give  them  free  range. 
Free  range  is  what  is  wanted  by  poultry.  If  they  are  yarded 
up  they  get  into  all  sorts  of  trouble. 

PIP. 

This  is  caused  by  overcrowding  and  old  runs,  where 
fowls  have  been  kept  for  years.  A  new  location  is  a  preven- 
tative.  Gapes  is  also  caused  by  filthy  quarters.  Put  lime  in 
water,  and  also  throw  air  slaked  lime  in  the  houses  and  all 
over  the  poultry.  Do  this  at  least  once  a  month.  To  all 
poultry,  if  not  sick,  lime,  air-slaked,  in  powdered  form,  is  the 
best  disinfectant  there  is.  It  sweetens  water,  houses,  and 
prevents  lice  and  dampness. 

Gasoline  is  the  best  lice  killer,  sure  and  safe  to  old  and 
young  poultry.  It  never  disturbs  them  nor  makes  them  sore* 
nor  will  it  kill  them.  Spray  it  all  over  them  with  a  sprayer, 
but  be  careful  not  to  have  a  lamp  or  a  match  near  it_ 

Never  hatch  late  chicks.  Anything  hatched  after  June 
1st  is  not  worth  having.  The  late  hatched  chicks  never  will 
amount  to  anything.  In  the  fall  they  are  small  and  puny, 
and  liable  to  diseases  and  colds,  because  they  are  not  full 
feathered  and  not  matured. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  5J> 

A  Warning  to  Poultry  men....  Cause  of  Roup  in  Young  Stock.... 
Raising  Young  Stock. 

The  poultryman  must  be  very  careful  about  housing- 
young"  stock  after  they  are  six  weeks  old.  They  are  out  of 
the  brooder  and  need  no  more  heat.  Now,  most  breeders 
put  barrels  and  boxes  all  over  the  place  for  them,  and  thirty 
to  fifty  crowd  into  one  box  or  barrel.  This  is  very  danger- 
ous. They  sweat  at  night,  come  out  in  the  wet  dew  and 
cold  air  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning;  they  catch  cold  and 
their  eyes  swell  up;  they  get  thin  and  make  a  noise  in  the 
throat  as  if  they  had  a  frog  in  it.  They  die  of  consumption 
because  they  are  in  a  hot,  tight  box,  and  sweat  all  night,  and 
the  air  is  not  pure.  They  breathe  in  and  out  the  same 
breath,  which  causes  weak  lungs,  consumption,  colds  and 
roup.  You  must  provide  an  open  shed  for  them  with  roosts 
and  don't  let  them  crowd  all  night.  The  open  shed  with  an 
open  front  and  a  good  tight  roof,  is  an  ideal  house  for  them, 
and  you  will  see  the  difference  in  stock.  You  will  see  them 
grow  like  weeds.  We  make  a  combination  roosting  coop 
and  brooder  for  this  purpose  — two  floors,  the  first  being" 
eighteen  inches  high,  and  the  second  three  feet  high.  On 
the  lower  floor  is  a  mother,  the  same  as  in  a  brooder,  but 
without  any  heat.  This  floor  is  for  chicks  when  six  weeks 
old.  They  need  no  more  heat  when  that  age  in  the  spring, 
so  they  are  put  in  this  brooder  underneath  the  coop.  When 
they  are  ten  weeks  old  they  are  put  up  on  the  upper  floor  on 
the  roosts  and  slats  placed  over  the  doors  to  second  floor  to 
prevent  the  older  chicks  going  into  the  lower  floor.  You  can 
then  put  younger  chicks  in  the  lower  floor  again  where  the 
round  mother  with  the  cloth  is.  If  fifty  chicks  are  put  on 
the  lower  floor  their  own  animal  heat  will  keep  them  warm, 
and  it  is  so  arranged  that  the  ventilation  is  perfect  and  the 
chicks  cannot  sweat  nor  crowd.  On  the  upper  floor  thirty 
to  forty  chicks  can  roost  with  ease  ;  up  to  four  months  old 
and  after  that  thirty  is  plenty.  That  number  can  stay  in  the 
coop  until  snow  flies.  You  should  have  ten  to  forty  of  these 


<>0  NATURE    AND   ITS 

-coops  all  over  the  plant,  depending1  on  how  many  chicks 
you  are  going  to  raise. 

They  are  the  best  coop  on  the  market  in  this  line,  and 
are  worth  twice  what  they  cost,  if  you  want  good,  large, 
healthy  pullets  to  lay,  and  want  to  win  in  the  shows.  They 
are  rat,  cat,  mink  and  water  proof. 

They  should  be  made  of  No.  2  pine  flooring,  and  will 
last  for  years.  They  weigh  about  two  hundred  pounds,  and 
can  be  shipped  from  St.  Charles  to  almost  any  point  within 
one  thousand  miles  for  one  dollar.  We  can  ship  them  from 
here  in  knocked  down  condition,  with  the  different  sections 
put  together. 

We  sell  these  coops  complete  for  $15.00,  ready  to  ship. 
On  orders  for  half  a  dozen  we  will  pay  the  freight  anywhere 
in  the  United  States. 

These  coops  were  invented  and  made  on  our  ranch  by 
John  M.  Sontag. 

The  blue  prints  show  the  construction  of  the  coops,  and 
any  one  can  make  them  for  themselves.  The  cost  will  be 
about  the  same  as  if  ordered  from  us  direct. 

The  Best  Poultry  for  Market,  for  Meat  and  for  Eggs. 

After  twenty-five  years  of  practical  experience  I  have 
found  the  best  poultry  for  market,  meat  and  eggs  at  any 
age  from  six  weeks  to  two  years  to  be  as  follows: 

The  best  layers  on  record  are  the  Black  China  Lang- 
shans.  I  have  tried  over  seventy-five  of  the  best  breeds 
known.  If  you  want  eggs  when  it  is  twenty  below  zero, 
you  can  have  them  if  you  keep  Black  Langshans  and  have 
the  egg  laying  strain.  Not  all  the  breeders  have  this  strain 
and  it  is  a  matter  of  years  and  experience  to  breed  them  for 
laying.  I  have  Langshans  that  averaged  209  eggs  each  per 
year  and  I  breed  from  them  only.  I  have  also  two  pullets 
that  have  won  the  worlds  record  in  the  show  room.  They 
are  winners  as  well  as  layers.  I  breed  for  both. 


NATURAL   LAWS.  61 

Practical  Points  of  a  Langshan. 

A  Black  Langshan  fowl  is  the  best  mother.  Why?  She 
is  very  careful  with  eggs  and  her  chicks.  She  will  take  them 
of  any  age  and  size  and  mother  them,  even  if  they  are  not 
her  own  hatched.  She  is  not  always  looking  for  a  fight,  but 
is  very  gentle  and  tame.  They  do  not  set  like  other  large 
fowls.  Only  once  a  year  they  care  to  set,  while  others  want 
to  set  all  summer  and  are  willing  to  try  to  hatch  stones  or 
their  own  feet. 

They  lay  the  year  round,  and  when  my  wife  wants  eggs 
she  goes  into  the  Langshan  house  for  them.  This  she  can 
not  do  with  any  other  breed.  I  will  put  them  up  against 
any  other  breed  in  this  country.  Some  people  think  the 
Leghorn  is  the  best  layer.  This  is  a  great  mistake.  Keep 
account  for  yourself  which  is  the  best.  I  have  kept  egg 
records  for  ten  years  and  know  whereof  I  write.  A  Leg- 
horn will  lay  eggs  like  the  old  harry  for  a  while,  especially 
when  every  other  hen  lays,  but  when  it  comes  to  laying  in 
the  winter  she  is  behind  every  other  breed.  She  lays  eggs 
when  they  are  eight  cents  a  dozen  in  the  stores,  but  a  Lang- 
shan will  lay  when  they  are  thirty  and  forty  cents  a  dozen, 
and  when  eggs  are  twenty-five  cents  in  the  fall  the  Leghorn 
is  moulting,  but  the  Langshan  is  laying  right  along  through 
the  moulting  season. 

Some  say  that  the  Langshan  has  black  legs  and  black 
feathers  and  does  not  sell  good  or  dress  well.  How  about  a 
turkey?  Have  they  not  black  pin-feathers  and  is  not  their 
meat  good?  A  Langshan  is  better  eating  than  a  turkey. 
The  French  cooks  always  prefer  a  black  fowl,  because  they 
say  the  meat  is  juicier,  sweeter  and  finer  in  bone  and  skin. 

A  turkey  has  black  legs,  so  has  a  Langshans,  and  the 
meat  is  extra  good  in  both.  The  best  Black  Langshans  come 
from  the  cold  northern  part  of  China,  and  are  hardy  and 
stand  the  cold  climate  better  than  any  other  breed.  You 
must  introduce  the  Langshans  to  your  market.  In  fact,  I 


62  NATURE  AND  ITS 

never  need  to  sell  them  to  the  market  for  meat,  as  I  cannot 
raise  them  fast  enough  for  breeders. 

I  get  $5  to  $15  each  for  cockerels  and  $2  to  $10  for  hens 
and  pullets.  Eggs  I  sell  at  $2  to  $5  per  thirteen  and  the 
hens  lay  well  up  to  three  years  of  age.  When  other  hens 
lay  only  forty  eggs  a  year  a  three-year-old  Black  Langshan 
will  lay  100  or  more.  Now  this  is  a  matter  of  experience 
and  record.  No  prouder  fowl  lives.  They  are  fine  appear- 
ing with  their  glossy  black  feathers  and  the  green  sheen  ad- 
mired by  all  who  see  them.  They  weigh  from  eight  to  eleven 
pounds  when  one  year  old.  If  you  want  to  make  dollars 
and  cents  the  year  round  try  them. 

What  One  Hen  Can  Do. 

She  can  clear  you  $10  a  year.  This  is  how  it  can  be  done 
•with  fifty  hens.  One  pure  bred  hen,  bred  for  laying  will  lay 
over  200  eggs  a  year.  You  can  sell  one-half  of  the  eggs  for 
the  market,  because  in  the  fall  and  winter  you  cannot  sell 
eggs  for  hatching  at  any  price,  because  nobody  hatches 
chicks  at  that  time  of  the  year. 

Now  we  will  set  all  the  eggs  this  one  hen  lays  between 
February  and  July.  This  gives  us  say  150  days  for  her  to 
lay  100  eggs.  This  she  can  do  if  she  is  from  a  laying  strain. 
Those  100  eggs  set  under  other  hens  while  she  is  laying,  and 
if  she  should  want  to  set  break  her  from  it,  and  in  a  few 
days  she  will  go  to  laying  again.  Now  set  all  the  eggs  she 
lays,  100  of  them,  and  seventy-five  will  hatch  chicks,  and  say 
you  raise  only  fifty  of  them.  Now,  those  fifty  will  sell  for 
twenty-five  cents  each  on  the  market  when  they  are  three 
months  old  on  the  average.  Fifty  chicks  at  twenty-five 
cents  each  is  $12.50.  The  cost  to  feed  the  hen  and  these 
fifty  chicks  is,  say  $2.50.  This  makes  $10  net  over  all  costs 
for  one  hen,  without  considering  the  eggs  sold  in  the  fall 
and  winter.  If  you  sell  the  chicks  when  six  months  old  you 
get  more  for  them.  If  you  have  good  stock  and  advertise  it 
you  can  sell  them  from  $2  to  $5  each  and  make  $100  clear  on 


NATURAL   LAWS  63 

each  hen.  This  has  been  done  a  great  many  times  and  hun- 
dreds can  prove  it. 

Now,  fifty  hens  treated  the  same  way  can  do  the  same; 
but  this  is  where  the  trouble  comes.  Why?  Because  you 
do  not  give  them  all  the  same  care,  and  range,  and  show. 
This  you  must  do  or  you  cannot  make  $1.00  net  on  each  hen. 
You  must  work  for  it  the  same  as  in  any  other  business. 

The  best  all  around  chicken  for  the  market  is  between 
the  Rhode  Island  Red  and  the  Buff  Wyandotte.  The  best 
layer  of  the  two  is  the  Rhode  Island  Red,  and  as  for  the 
market,  it  is  six  of  one  and  half  a  dozen  of  the  other.  The 
Rhode  Island  Reds  are  next  in  laying1  to  the  Langshans. 
They  are  better  than  the  Buff  Wyandottes  or  any  other 
breed.  They  are  hardy  and  have  always  been  bred  for  lay- 
ers, and  had  to  rough  it  for  wild  fowls.  This  breed  origi- 
nated in  Rhode  Island,  and  farmers  down  there  have  quit 
fancy  stock  and  have  gone  to  egg  farming.  Some  keep  as 
many  as  three  thousand  hens,  one  hundred  in  each  house,  one 
hundred  in  each  house  on  the  colony  plan.  They  are  never 
yarded  and  are  always  on  free  range.  They  are  used  to  all 
manner  of  rough  life,  cold,  wet  and  dampness.  As  the 
entire  state  is  low  and  wet,  it  does  not  affect  them,  as  they 
are  accustomed  to  it. 

Egg  Farm  Pays. 

My  advice  is  to  go  in  the  egg  farm  business  and  have 
houses  all  over  the  farm.  Don't  crowd;  fifty  in  one  house  is 
plenty;  and  if  on  free  range  the  year  round  you  can  at  least 
net  Si. 00  each  from  each  hen;  and  if  you  have  one  thousand 
hens  you  can  make  a  good  living  at  small  cost.  Say  twelve 
houses,  12x24  including  shed,  as  per  blue  print.  Each  house 
will  cost  you  about  $25.00,  and  are  good  for  twenty  years  if 
kept  in  repair.  You  don't  want  anything  better  and  easier 
than  this.  You  don't  have  to  bother  with  fences  and  gates, 
long,  expensive  houses,  separate  pens  and  troughs  for  each 
twelve  hens.  You  can  get  twsnty-five  cents  per  dozen  for 
your  eggs  the  year  around  at  private  houses  and  hotels  and 


NATURE   AND   IT& 

clubs  and  banquets.     A  forty  acre  farm  is  all  you  will  need, 
with  the  houses  one  hundred  yards  or  more  apart. 

Fertile  Eggs  in  Winter. 

It  is  impossible  to  get  a  good  percentage  of  fertile  eggs 
in  winter,  and  those  that  are  fertile  hatch  weakly  chicks. 
It  is  against  nature  to  hatch  them  in  winter.  The  eggs  will 
be  most  fertile  in  April  and  May,  and  that  is  the  time  when 
the  wild  birds  commence  to  hatch  their  young.  It  is  only  a 
•waste  of  time  to  hatch  in  winter.  The  best  time  is  in  March, 
April  and  May.  The  chicks  will  do  well  then,  because  they 
will  have  the  outdoor  air.  live  in  the  grass,  and  will  be  busy 
looking  for  bugs,  worms,  etc.  The  warm  air  and  sun  makes 
them  grow  and  do  well.  Only  a  small  percentage  of  them 
will  die  at  this  time  of  the  year.  Don't  try  to  go  against 
nature.  You  will  fail  if  you  do. 

When  you  save  the  eggs  for  hatching,  feed  corn  and 
oats.  Corn  makes  strong,  rich,  yellow  yolks,  and  the  chicks 
will  be  strong.  Fresh  cracked  bone  fed  to  the  hens  at  this 
time  will  help  to  make  them  lay  fertile  eggs.  Feed  this 
cracked  bone  only  twice  a  week,  and  only  one  to  two  pounds 
for  fifty  hens.  The  fresh,  raw  meat  and  bone  causes  worms, 
and  liver  diseases,  roup  and  distemper,  if  you  over  feed. 

Fattening  Poultry. 

To  fatten  for  the  market  you  should  have  them  in  good 
flesh,  and  it  will  then  be  easy  to  fatten  them.  Feed  them 
on  cooked  cornmeal  and  buckwheat.  Mix  charcoal  in  the 
feed.  Cooked  beans  are  good  flesh  producers,  and  a  little  oil 
meal  should  be  mixed  in  with  it.  Never  over  feed,  and  the 
first  few  days  give  them  only  half  enough  to  eat.  Then  for 
the  rest  of  ten  days,  feed  them  heavily,  but  never  leave  any 
food  before  them.  Fatten  them  only  twelve  to  fourteen 
days.  If  you  fatten  them  any  longer  they  will  get  sick  and 
run  down. 


NATURAL  LAWS.  65 

Birds  and  Nature. 

Remember  that  the  wild  birds  are  out  in  all  kinds  of 
weather,  cold,  ice,  snow,  and  they  don't  have  colds  or  roup. 
They  roost  in  trees,  and  not  in  a  bad  smelling-  house.  They 
always  have  fresh  air,  and  the  bad  air  from  their  droppings 
never  reaches  them,  They  are  not  tender,  like  a  hot-house 
plant.  They  gradually  get  used  to  the  outdoor  life.  They 
never  overfeed  and  are  never  fed  on  all  kinds  of  egg  food  to 
make  them  grow  and  lay.  They  have  to  look  for  every  seed 
they  get,  and  work  for  it.  Flying  is  exercise  for  them. 
Their  eggs  always  hatch.  You  never  saw  an  unfertile  egg 
in  a  bird's  nest.  Nature  will  do  more  for  fertile  eggs  and 
health  for  poultry  than  all  the  truck  you  can  possibly  feed 
them .  If  a  poultryman  reads  the  analysis  of  foods,  and  fol- 
lows the  directions  of  those  professors,  doctors  and  would-be 
experts  on  these  lines,  he  will  get  into  trouble .  A  hen  at 
liberty  finds  a  great  variety  of  food  and  is  always  healthy. 
She  will  lay  a  lot  of  eggs,  and  almost  all  will  be  fertile. 

A  hen  in  confinement  will  worry,  and  all  the  food  you 
give  will  do  no  good.  Half  of  them  will  be  sick,  and  a  third 
of  the  eggs  will  not  be  fertile.  Those  that  are  fertile  are 
weakly  and  sickly  chicks  when  hatched. 

A  hen  that  steals  her  nest  will  most  always  hatch  every 
egg  and  she  can  care  for  the  chicks  without  any  food  from 
man  at  all  up  to  three  weeks  old.  This  I  know  to  be  a  fact, 
and  I  seldom  water  or  feed  the  chicks,  and  they  are  as 
healthy  as  prairie  chickens.  Wet  grass  and  rains  do  not 
bother  the  hen,  she  will  care  for  them  right  out  in  the  open 
air,  the  same  as  other  birds.  This  ought  to  be  a  lesson  for 
those  who  are  in  trouble  with  poultry.  Follow  nature,  and 
follow  as  closely  as  you  can.  Don't  heat  your  hen  houses, 
or  don't  heat  your  brooder  houses  after  March. 

If  you  want  to  raise  chickens  in  December,  January  and 
February,  keep  the  house  just  above  the  freezing  point,  have 
sand  on  the  floor  and  give  them  all  the  air  possible.  Have  a 
pen  with  straw  in  it  to  keep  them  scratching  for  the  grain. 


66  NATURE   AND  ITS 

Don't  force  their  growth.  You  have  probably  seen  a  hot 
house  plant  or  vegetables  grow  up  high,  and  before  they 
reach  maturity,  fall  over,  the  stalk  not  being  strong  enough 
to  keep  it  standing.  So  with  chicks,  they  get  weak  legs 
and  cannot  hold  their  weight  up.  Then  too,  a  hot  house 
plant  grown  in  winter  and  put  out  doors,  even  in  mild 
weather,  will  lie  down  and  only  the  best  care  will  keep  it 
from  dying,  because  it  is  not  used  to  the  outside  air.  But 
if  the  the  hot  house  plant  had  had  outside  air  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sprouting,  it  would  stand  all  kinds  of  expos- 
ure. So  with  chicks,  you  must  get  them  used  to  the  outside 
air  at  the  start,  and  then  you  will  be  successful.  I  have 
tried  many  ways  to  care  for  poultry,  and  find  that  all  the 
food  on  earth  is  no  good  if  you  don't  give  them  air,  sun  and 
free  range.  Never  yard  them  up  after  they  are  a  week  old. 
It  pays  to  let  them  run,  and  you  will  not  be  bothered  with 
diseases. 

I  will  if  necessary  visit  all  who  read  this  book  and  fail, 
regardless  of  distance  and  expense.  What  others  do,  you 
can. 

I  will  close  this  little  book  and  say  this:  Don't  judge  the 
value  of  the  book  for  its  size,  but  consider  the  contents.  A 
book  ever  so  large  is  of  no  use  if  it  is  not  a  practical  one. 
Further,  a  great  deal  of  information  can  be  gotten  out  of 
this  book  if  directions  are  followed.  If  at  any  time  you  are 
stuck,  write  me.  There  is  no  such  book  written  on  poultry 
and  you  cannot  help  being  successful  and  make  it  pay  for 
the  market. 

The  blue  prints  are  also  original  and  from  my  own  plans 
and  they  will  save  you  a  lot  of  money  when  building  poul- 
try houses.  If  you  cannot  make  it  successfully  with  these 
instructions  you  will  fail  in  any  other  business.  Dozens  are 
now  doing  well  with  my  advice,  and  have  paid  well  for  the 
instructions  by  letter. 

Fruit  Trees  and  Poultry  Great  Money  Makers. 

These  two  go  well  together  and  a  sure  crop  is  assured 
every  year.  Poultry  are  money  makers  every  year,  but 


NATURAL  LAWS.  67 

fruit  trees  do  not  bear  a  full  crop,  as  the  trees  rest  a 
year.  Fruit  does  better  when  the  poultry  are  among  them 
because  the  chickens  get  all  the  worms,  bugs  and  insects 
that  would  otherwise  ruin  the  fruit  and  trees.  The  only 
place  where  plums  do  well  is  where  poultry  is  plenty,  as 
they  kill  all  the  culture  worms  and  other  insects. 

How  to  Plant  Trees  and  Have  Them  Do  Well  in  Any  Soil  and 
Climate. 

For  a  forty  acre  farm  buy  the  trees  in  a  nursery  in  your 
own  state,  because  you  know  then  that  they  are  acclimated. 
Order  them  early  in  the  spring,  and  just  as  soon  as  the  frost 
is  out  of  the  ground  dig  holes  forty  feet  apart  for  apples, 
twenty-five  feet  for  cherry  trees,  twenty  feet  for  plum  and 
pear  trees  and  other  trees  that  do  not  branch  out  too  far. 
The  idea  is  to  get  them  far  enough  apart  to  get  air  and  sun 
when  they  are  ten  to  twenty  years  old.  While  the  apple 
trees  are  growing  you  can  plant  plum  and  cherry  trees  be- 
tween them  and  when  the  apple  trees  are  fifteen  to  twenty 
years  old,  the  cherry  and  plum  trees  will  die  out  from  age. 
In  this  way  you  use  up  all  the  ground  possible.  This  is  the 
best  place  on  a  farm  to  raise  poultry.  They  manure  the 
land  and  keep  bugs  and  worms  off  the  trees.  It  is  a  good 
place  for  shade  and  is  better  than  in  the  woods,  as  there  are 
no  hawks  or  other  animals  to  bother  them.  The  thick 
woods  hide  the  hawks,  crows  and  animals  which  pray  on  the 
chicks,  while  the  orchard  is  free  from  them. 

When  and  How  to  Plant  Fruit  Trees. 

When  your  trees  come  put  them  in  a  cool  place  and  pour 
water  over  the  roots.  Do  not  plant  them  on  a  dry  warm 
day  when  the  sun  shines,  as  the  roots  are  very  delicate  and 
will  die  if  exposed  to  the  sun.  The  best  time  to  plant  is 
after  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  and  before  the  sun  is  too 
high  in  the  morning,  say  seven  o'clock.  You  should  have 
plenty  of  help  to  plant  your  orchard  and  do  it  right. 


DO  NATURE   AND   ITS 

The  trees  are  best  at  three  years  old,  or  five  to  six  feet 
high,  strong  and  at  least  two  inches  in  diameter  near  the 
roots.  If  you  buy  them  by  the  thousand  you  can  get  them 
for  about  ten  cents  each.  When  you  plant  them  cut  off  all 
the  broken  roots  and  trim  all  the  branches  almost  like  a 
whip.  This  will  put  all  the  strength  in  the  roots  where 
otherwise  it  would  be  in  the  branches,  and  the  tree  would 
die  when  hot  weather  came  on.  In  planting,  put  in  two 
handfuls  of  wet  oats  around  the  roots.  This  will  start  the 
fibre  roots  and  you  will  be  surprised  to  see  the  trees  grow. 
The  toats  sprout  around  the  roots  and  this  starts  the  tree 
roots  to  grow.  Don't  fail  to  do  this.  Now,  if  you  have  no 
black  loam  on  your  orchard,  haul  some  in  and  throw  a  few 
shovel  fulls  in  each  hole  after  the  oats  are  around  the  roots. 
Put  in  a  little  fruit  and  root  crop  fertilizer  over  the  black 
soil,  stamp  the  ground  hard  over  the  roots  so  no  air  can  get 
to  the  roots,  then  shovel  in  the  rest  of  the  soil.  Water  each 
tree  if  the  soil  is  dry.  If  the  soil  is  wet  it  is  not  necessary. 

Mulching  Trees. 

When  the  tree  is  planted,  heap  up  the  soil  around  it,  put 
straw  or  wild  hay  around  the  tree,  and  put  stones  on  the 
straw  to  keep  it  from  blowing  away.  The  straw  prevents 
the  sun  and  air  from  drying  out  the  soil  at  the  roots.  It  is 
impossible  to  grow  fruit  trees  unless  you  do  this.  Trim  the 
trees  down  like  a  whip,  this  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  success. 
You  should  also  cultivate  them  at  least  six  feet  on  each  side 
of  the  trees.  Run  a  plow  on  each  side  and  then  harrow  it 
level.  Do  this  three  or  four  times  every  summer  up  to 
August.  You  must  cultivate  trees  to  make  them  grow 
quickly,  and  it  will  surprise  you  in  a  few  years  to  see  those 
ten  to  twelve  foot  trees  bearing  fruit.  Plum  trees  will  have 
fruit  two  years  after  planting,  peaches  in  two  years,  cherries 
the  fourth  year  and  apples  in  six  years.  To  get  peaches, 
trim  the  branches  down  for  three  years  to  get  a  good  trunk, 
then  let  the  branches  out.  In  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan 
and  Wisconsin,  it  is  customary  to  mulch  the  trees  heavily 


NATURAL  LAWS.  69 

with  straw  in  the  fall,  about  three  feet  around  and  a  foot 
deep,  and  keep  it  there  until  May  15th.  This  prevents  the 
tree  from  blooming  too  early. 

Most  of  those  who  start  in  peach  farming-  have  either 
the  flowers  or  fruit  frozen  and  the  consequence  is  no 
peaches.  Now,  if  you .  mulch  them  heavily  to  keep  the 
ground  cold  around  the  tree  and  keep  the  frost  from  coming 
out  of  the  ground,  the  tree  will  not  start  growing  until 
after  the  danger  from  frost  is  over.  Peach  trees  will  bloom 
early  in  April  if  care  is  not  taken,  while  they  should  not 
bloom  until  May  15.  By  doing  this  you  will  be  certain 
of  a  crop.  It  will  also  pay  you  to  «rope  them  up  with  straw 
or  old  bags.  This  will  prevent  the  frost  killing  the  trees. 
Where  the  snow  is  deep  in  the  winter  it  is  not  necessary  to 
do  this,  but  where  there  is  not  much  snow  it  should  be  done. 
Snow  is  about  the  best  protection  from  frost  we  hare,  es- 
pecially for  young  trees,  clover,  grass,  etc. 

When  trees  are  six  to  eight  years  old,  no  more  cultiva- 
tion is  necessary.  Peach  trees  bear  very  little  fruit  after 
eight  years  old,  but  other  trees  are  good  for  many  years  if 
properly  trimmed  every  year. 

Spraying  Fruit  Trees. 

Spray  the  trees  when  the  buds  are  ready  to  bloom,  and 
again  ten  days  after  blooming.  There  are  thousands  of 
small  flies  that  injure  the  flowers,  by  and  spraying  it  will 
kill  them,  and  they  will  not  go  near  a  flower  that  has  been 
sprayed.  Any  nurseryman  will  tell  you  just  what  liquids  to 
use  for  spraying,  or  the  Government  will  send  you  a  small 
circular  on  spraying  for  the  asking 

Poultry  in  the  Orchard. 

Every  one  hundred  feet  have  a  small  house  to  hold  fifty 
hens.  Have  these  colony  houses  all  over  the  orchard.  The 
young  stock  should  also  be  raised  in  the  orchard ,  as  the  shade 


70  NATURE   AND   ITS 

is  good  and   the  cultivated  ground  furnishes  an  excellent 
scratching  place  for  them, 

The  best  fruit  soil  is  a  sandy  clay  loam,  with  gravel  un- 
derneath, say  three  or  four  feet.  This  furnishes  a  natural 
drain.  The  trees  should  be  planted  on  a  ground  sloping 
slightly  to  the  east,  except  for  peaches,  which  should  be 
planted  on  the  north  or  west  slopes.  This  slope  does  not 
warm  up  as  quickly  in  the  spring,  and  so  holds  back  the 
growing  until  the  danger  from  frost  is  past.  It  is  also  cooler 
in  the  summer,  and  the  shadows  are  longer,  so  the  soil  does 
not  dry  out  as  fast. 

Wild  plums  do  best  in  a  low,  wet  place,  near  a  river  or 
swamp. 

An  orchard  when  in  good  bearing  condition  will  bring 
in  from  two  to  three  hundred  dollars  per  acre  if  well  cared 
for.  Care  and  work  will  make  it  pay.  One  hundred  hens 
will  do  well  on  an  acre  and  bring  you  in  one  hundred  dol- 
lars net  after  paying  for  all  the  feed,  if  the  eggs  are  sold  at 
store  prices.  If  they  are  sold  for  fancy  prices,  for  show  and 
breeding  stock,  one  hundred  hens  will  make  a  thousand 
dollars  an  acre.  You  must  advertise  your  fancy  stock,  how- 
ever, to  make  sales. 

My  advice  would  be  to  work  the  two  together,  and  thus 
make  the  best  use  of  the  land.  It  will  pay  one  hundred  per 
cent  better  than  corn  or  oats,  and  is  less  work.  Fruit  always 
brings  a  good  price  if  it  is  A  No.  1,  but  if  not  first  class  it  is 
not  wanted  at  any  price.  Hundreds  of  farmers  do  not  care 
for  their  trees,  never  go  near  them,  and  in  the  fall  the 
ground  is  covered  with  apples,  worm  eaten,  while  if  they 
had  cared  for  their  tree,  cultivated  them  and  sprayed  them, 
they  could  get  from  two  to  five  dollars  per  .barrel  for  the 
apples.  Baldwins,  Ben  Davis,  Russets,  North  Star  apples 
sell  like  hot  cake  at  good  prices. 

Looking  for  a  Manager. 

If  you  intend  to  go  into  the  poultry  and  fruit  business 
on  a  large  scale,  it  will  be  necessary  to  consult  a  practical 


NATUBAL  LAWS. 


71 


man  who  understands  it  in  all  its  branches.  The  whole 
secret  lies  in  starting  right,  in  location  of  farm  and  build- 
ings, the  selection  of  the  proper  poultry  for  the  market,  and 
eggs,  and  a  dozen  other  points. 

Thousands  fail  in  not  starting  right.  They  invest  ten 
to  fifteen  thousand  dollars  in  buildings,  machinery,  boilers, 
etc.  I  can  start  you  right,  having  had  years  of  experience, 
and  having  started  ranches,  east  and  west,  from  the  founda- 
tion. I  have  plans  of  my  own,  original  and  up-to-date.  They 
show  buildings  which  are  cheap,  handy  and  practical,  for 
the  health  of  the  poultry.  These  blue  prints  and  plans  are 
the  best  on  the  market  today,  and  I  can  save  you  several 
thousand  dollars  in  starting,  After  you  are  started  any  one 
can  make  it  pay,  if  this  book  is  followed,  and  you  need  not 
pay  an  expert  one  hundred  dollars  a  month  to  manage  it  for 
you. 

The  best  time  to  start  is  in  July  or  August,  not  later. 
Never  start  in  earlv  spring  or  late  fall.  I  will  start  you  out 
right,  and  will  go  anywhere  in  the  United  States  or  Canada 
for  the  small  amount  of  five  dollars  per  day  and  expenses. 
I  will  guarantee  to  start  you  right,  that  you  will  have  the 
best  plant  in  the  country,  arid  that  you  cannot  help  but  be 
successful. 

For  twenty-five  dollars  I  will  correspond  with  parties  by 
mail,  make  plans  and  give  you  directions  which  will  help 
you  greatly,  and  will  save  you  a  lot  of  money  in  the  end. 
Don't  make  the  mistakes  others  have. 

Thousands  make  a  good  living  from  poultry,  and  what 
others  do  you  can  do,  at  half  the  expense,  with  my  direc- 
tions. 

I  can  come  to  start  a  plant  for  you  at  any  time  between 
June  first  and  October  first,  or  will  correspond  with  you  at 
any  time. 

Respectfully  yours, 

•  JNO.  M.  SONTAG. 


AN  INITIAL 


OF  25 


OVERDUE. 

ilA*  1938 


DAY 


LD  21-95m-7,'37 


I    /  o  j  r\ 

Itoiu 


101943 


